SELIM
Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature
Revista de la Sociedad Española de Lengua y Literatura Inglesa Medieval
Nº 6, 1996
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
Manuel A GUIRRE: “Beot”, Hybris, and the Will in Beowulf.
5
Javier M ARTÍN A RISTA: External control in functional syntax: formu lating LME constituent order rules.
32
Javier DÍAZ VERA: On the linguistic status of Medieval copies and
translations of Old English documentary texts.
51
Javier CALLE M ARTÍN: Stereotyped comparisons in the language of
Geoffrey Chaucer.
64
José María GUTIÉRREZ A RRANZ: The classical and modern concept
of auctoritas in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
85
Alison BUCKETT RIVERA: Motherhoof in The Wife of Bath.
103
Jesús SERRANO REYES: John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain: possible repercussions for Chaucer’s life and poetry.
117
1
NOTES & INTERVIEWS
Andrew BREEZE: Did Sir Thomas Philipps (fl. 1489-1520) write I love a
flower?
149
REVIEWS & NOTICES
Andrew BREEZE: Michael Swanton 1997: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, translated and edited by Michael Swanton. Dent: London.
155
Antonio BRAVO GARCÍA: Peter S. Baker ed. 1995: Beowulf: Basic
Readings. Norfolk & London: Garland Publishing.
157
Alicia RODRÍGUEZ Á LVAREZ : Stephen Pollington 1997: First Steps
in Old English. Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books.
167
Javier CALLE M ARTÍN: Juan de la Cruz, Ángel Cañete & Antonio
Miranda 1995: Introducción Histórica a la Lengua Inglesa.
Málaga: Ágora.
172
Eva M. PÉREZ RODRÍGUEZ : E. J. Morrall ed. 1996: Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius (Pius II): The Goodli History of the Ladye Lucres.
Oxford: EETS - Oxford University Press.
178
Paloma TEJADA CALLER: N. F. Blake 1996: A history of the English
language. Houndmills: MacMillan.
185
Setmaní VALENZUELA : Robert E. Bjork & John D. Niles eds. 1997: A
Beowulf Handbook. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
189
Antonio BRAVO GARCÍA: Old and Middle English Bibliography 199597.
194
*†*
ARTICLES
“BEOT”, HYBRIS, AND THE WILL IN BEOWULF
1. PRIDE-W ORDS IN BEOWULF
Why is Aeschylus’ Prometheus punished for his daring, why is Beowulf
praised for his? Codes of conduct prevalent in the respective cultures make it
necessary that the culture hero’s foremost deed of courage should be sanctioned by the community in the Anglo-Saxon text, but condemned (though
sympathized with) in the Greek. Those codes concern, among other things,
the propriety of certain human attitudes towards society and the cosmos, and
towards the gods, forces, or principles that are thought to rule these. The
poem Beowulf is infused with an ethical code which governs the conduct of
king, retainer and comitatus, and central to which stands the issue of pride
and its various manifestations.
The semantic field of ‘pride words’ in Beowulf contains the following1:
ahliehhan
begylpan
beot
beotian
deall
dolgilp
gal
1
to laugh, exult
to boast, exult
boast, threat, vow, pledge; danger
to threaten; to boast, vow, promise
proud, famousd
foolish boasting, foolhardiness
lust, luxury, wantonness, folly, levity; gay,
light, wanton; proud, wicked
Only those words are included of which at least one sense relates to the semantic
field. Thus mod belongs in because in at least one sense, ‘pride’, it belongs in our
field; stip-mod (‘stout- hearted, firm, resolute, brave, stubborn, stern, severe’) is
excluded because no sense given it by the dictionary belongs. For the rest, this is an
open semantic field which drifts into other fields such as those of terms for speech,
for various states of mind, courage, anger, exultation; glory; power; wealth; promising; and so on.
Manuel Aguirre, Selim 6 (1998): 5—31
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
galnes
galscipe
gielp, gilp, gylp
gilpan, gylpan
gylp-cwide
gilp-hlæden
hremig
hyge
mod
modig
modpracu
oferhygd
onmedla
wlencu
wlonc
frivolity, wantonness, lust
excess, luxury, lasciviousness, wantonness,
pride
glory, ostentation, pride, boasting, arrogance, vainglory, haughtiness
to glory, boast, to desire earnestly; exult,
praise
a boastful speech
covered with glory, proud
clamorous, exultant, lamenting, boasting,
vaunting
pride; thought, mind, heart; courage; disposition, intention
soul, heart, mind; courage; mood, temper;
greatness, magnificence; pride, arrogance
of high or noble spirit; bold, brave; proud,
arrogant
impetuous courage, daring
pride, arrogance; proud
arrogance, presumption
pride, arrogance, haughtiness, glory, pomp,
splendour; bravado; wealth; daring
proud, high-spirited, bold
In addition, the following, though not found in Beowulf, are important
within the semantic field of pride-words in OE:
bælc
bælcan
hreman
hygeteona
hygepryp
modignes
ofermetto
belch; pride, arrogance
to cry out, vociferari
to boast, exult, call out in exultation or
lamentation; lament, murmur
deliberate injury or offence, insult
pride of heart or mind, insolence
pride, arrogance; magnanimity
pride, arrogance, haughtiness
6
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
ofermod
pryte
upahefednes
pride, insolence
pride, haughtiness, pomp
elevation, uplifting; pride, exultation, presumption, arrogance
Most of these denote emotions, attitudes, propensities, states of mind.
Two nouns, beot and gylp, differ from the rest in that they designate speech
acts (both are characteristically spoken) and not only convey attitudes but
also entail illocutionary force (obviously the verbs carry speech-act connotations where some of the corresponding nouns do not; in the case of bælc,
bælcan the verb seems to lack the pride-sense that is found in the noun).
This is particularly clear in the Bosworth-Toller entry for beot, where three
main senses are distinguished:
I. A threatening, threat, command, menace
II. Peril
III. A boasting, boasting promise, promise.
Of these, I. and III. constitute speech acts while II. shifts the semantic emphasis onto an entailment of ‘threat’. What we intend is to examine these two
terms and show what the community’s and the poet’s disposition towards
their respective speech acts reveals about the status of the individual’s will in
Beowulf and, by extension, in the Anglo-Saxon culture that produced the
poem. We shall then compare our findings with the semantics of Greek hybris, and draw an inference as to the different cultural attitudes towards the
forces that are thought to shape and govern the universe in each case. From
this an argument will be produced to situate Beowulf in the light of Christian
and pagan standpoints regarding the will.
2. GYLP
Let us begin by examining some instances of the use of gylp. After Beowulf’s death Wiglaf upbraids his cowardly retainers with the following
words:
2873-4 ‘Nealles folccyning fyrdgesteallum
7
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
gylpan porfte’
The people’s king had no reason at all to boast about comrades in
arms 1.
In the context, this means ‘They failed him miserably’. Similar sentiments
are conveyed by the poet as he surveys the scop’s account of the fight at
Finnsburg, where Hildeburh lost both son and brother to the Jutes:
1071-2 Ne huru Hildeburh herian porfte
Eotena treowe.
Indeed, Hildeburh had no cause to praise the loyalty of the Jutes.
In other words, ‘they betrayed her and hers’. Herian porfte belongs with
gylpan porfte in a pattern made up of an infinitive followed by a form of
purfan and occupying one half-line, and here we have an instance of formu laic language. This is not the place to enter the very complex and by no
means resolved discussion of the formula, but a word on the subject will be
necessary for our purposes. In a ground-breaking study of Homeric epic
composition, Milman Parry (1930) defined the formula as “a group of words
which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a
given essential idea” (1930: 80). The epic singer, he argued, does not memo rize his long song, but neither does he ‘create’ it on the spot. Rather, he is
able to compose a version of it because he structures his themes into one-line
and half-line formulas -- into a highly codified language which preexists his
text , and within which alone he frames his narrative. Subsequent researches
led Lord (1960) to the additional concept of the formulaic half-line, defined as
one which “follows the basic patterns of rhythm and syntax and has at least
one word in the same position in the line or half-line in common with other
lines or half lines” (1960: 47); Lord conceived the formulaic half-line as a more
‘relaxed’ version of the formula whereby the singer employs a familiar
structure but varies some of the words by selecting them from what he called
a system of options (and which might also be labelled a paradigm). Seeking to
transpose these insights onto Anglo -Saxon epic poetry, other scholars since
Magoun (1953) have questioned both the definition and the scope of the
formula, and the latest consensus position seems to be that, whereas the
1
All translations are taken from Swanton 1978.
8
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
concept of the formula itself is too narrow, the notion of formu laic language
makes a great deal of sense.1 The poet (I abstract here from the thorny issue
of whether we are discussing an oral or a literate text) composes according to
a formulaic principle of ‘systems’ from which he selects items to fill the slots
provided by the formulaic (half-)line. This principle offers him not only
metrical and rhythmic but also ideational and thematic frames within which an
endless number of narrative performances can be fitted; the specific
combinations of words that result may (or not) be ‘new’ (‘original’, felicitous,
striking), the line and half-line structures are not.2
In this perspective, herian porfte and gylpan porfte above constitute
variations on a formulaic half-line that pivots on a verb porfte on which
depends the infinitive that precedes it. Additionally (and this goes beyond
the notion of formulaic half-lines, but still merits the label of ‘formulaic
language’), both clauses depend on an earlier negation -nealles, ne-. We find
another example in
2363-4: Nealles Hetware hremge porfton
fepewiges
The Hetware had no cause at all for exultation in the conflict of
troops.
The general idea is ‘They failed of their purpose (to defeat the hero)’.
Here purfan is in a plural past form, and the predicate it governs is an adjective rather than an infinitive; for the rest, the negative element is a constant,
and hremge porfton remains within the confines of the half-line. A further instance of formulaic language occurs in the following statement by Beowulf
after his successful expedition to the mere:
2005 ff. ‘Ic pæt eall gewræc,
swa begylpan ne pearf Grendeles maga
[…] uhthlem pone’
1
2
See O’Brien O’Keefe (1996) for a survey
No reduction or demeaning of the poet’s ‘creative’ power is to be inferred, rather the
strategy seems not to differ much from what the average English poet has been
doing since the Renaissance when composing (whether extempore or through laborious writing and revising) in iambic pentameters; the pentameter operates as a
framing device which does not so much constrain the poet as give him both rhythmic and semantic, even thematic, possibilities.
9
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
‘I avenge everything, so that none of Grendel’s kin […] will have
cause to boast of that predawn clash’
In other words, Grendel and his race have failed dismally. In these negative contexts, purfan functions as an implicative verb, its negation having
connotations of failure, of ‘not living up to standards’; 1 and such connotations attach, negatively, to herian, hremge and (be)gylpan: as the non-fulfilment of a boast amounts to failure, so reference to an imaginary boast is used
similarly in a litotes to disparage the fact that such a boast was not and would
not have been possible. He who fails to live up to his pledge, or he who cannot achieve what he might have wanted to boast of, are open to contempt;
while he who fails to receive the support he might have wanted to praise or
boast of is to be pitied. Both contempt and pity denote clearly negative attitudes, on the part of Wiglaf, the scop, Beowulf and the poet himself, towards
individuals who cannot fulfil their boast or who are not even in a position to
utter it. Though we have surely moved beyond the boundaries of the formu laic half-line, at least in so far as the construction swa begylpan ne pearf is
differently ordered, has a different tense, and adds swa, the whole remains
familiar; if not formulaic, it still displays a strong cohesion between the three
key elements: a negation, a form of purfan, and a dependent predicate of
boast, praise or exultation. To consider this cohesion, let us look at a different
type of example. If the narrator’s was a disparaging view in the previous
cases, it changes when the boaster achieves his purpose, as is shown by
cases where gylp appears in predictable correlation with specific verbs:
828-9 Hæfde East-Denum
Geatmecga leod gilp gelæsted,
swylce oncyppe ealle gebette […].
The prince of the Geatish men had fulfilled his boast to the East
Danes, and so remedied all the distress […].
The verb gelæstan occurs elsewhere with other nouns taken from a paradigm
of things-that-can- be-fulfilled:
1
The idea recurs in a simpler construction in which gylpan is employed without an
accompanying purfan: 2583-4 Hrepsigora ne gealp / goldwine Geata; gupbill
geswac / nacod æt nipe, swa hyt na sceolde, / iren ærgod. Said of Beowulf when his
sword proves unable to wound the dragon, the sentence carries the same connotations of failure (the weapon’s) and the same implicit regret on the narrator’s part.
10
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
1706-7 ‘Ic pe sceal mine gelæstan
freode, swa wit furpum spræcon’.
‘I shall fulfil my friendship towards you, just as we spoke together
a short time ago’.
2989-90 He pam frætwum feng ond him fægre gehet
leana mid leodum, ond gelæste swa
He accepted the trappings and courteously promised him rewards
among the people, and fulfilled it thus.
One fulfils one’s friendship towards another; one carries out one’s boasts
and promises. Whereas there is nothing formulaic about the last three examples, they exhibit a strong degree of cohesion between words of pledge (gylp,
gehetan; indirectly, sprecan) and the verb gelæstan. Though not formulaic,
this verb is at any rate a collocate of those terms. Hoey (1991: 154) defines
“collocation” as designating a type of textual cohesion consisting in the frequent co-occurrence of two -or more- lexical items (the ‘node’ and its
‘collocate’). The argument is that we do not learn and produce words in isolation but as part of contexts within which alone their meaning is generated;
this is to say that we learn and produce language in ‘chunks’ rather than in
single units. On the different level of poetic production, this was precisely
Parry’s and Lord’s claim for the art of Yugoslav epic singers (see Lord 1960:
35 ff.). It follows that formulaic language, and the formula as a special instance of this, are themselves special (poetic) instances of collocation, instances in which cohesion is close to reaching an upper limit; they are still
flexible in that they allow for paradigmatic variation, the upper limit being
probably found in the proverb or the cliché, which admit of practically no
variation. The point is important: uses of node terms like gylp, gylpan with
collocates like purfan or gelæstan evince supra-personal attitudes towards
the values expressed by these collocations; in a way somewhat comparable
to that of gnomic utterances, they convey aspects of a standard, sociallysanctioned value-system: boasts are to be fulfilled; not doing so amounts to
failure. This -the collocative constructions are saying- is a matter not only of
public knowledge but of universal validity.
11
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
3. BEOT
Much the same emerges from an analysis of beot. Consider the scene
where, seeking to humiliate Beowulf, Unferth taunts him with a biased account of the already legendary bet between the hero and Breca, when each
vowed to out-swim the other on a tempestuous (and monster-infested) sea:1
506-24 ‘Eart pu se Beowulf se pe wip Brecan wunne,
on sidne sæ ymb sund flite,
pær git for wlence wada cunnedon
ond for dolgilpe on deop wæter
aldrum nepdon? […]
[…] Beot eal wip pe
sunu Beanstanes sope gelæste’
‘Are you the Beowulf who contended against Breca, competed in
swimming on the open sea, where in your pride you two explored
the flood, and risked your lives in deep water for the sake of a
foolish boast? […] The son of Beanstan in fact accomplished all he
had boasted against you’.
The main point here is that, whatever Unferth’s motivations, and however
distorted his account of the events, he is right in claiming that, whereas the
two young men engaged in a “foolish boast” (for dolgilpe), yet it behoved
them to carry it out; he thus approves of Breca’s fulfilment of the boast, even
if the latter was initially unwise, and berates Beowulf for not living up to it.
This is confirmed by the beot-gelæste collocation, as by the fact that Beowulf, too, in rising to the challenge and turning the tables on Unferth, acknowledges that the boast had to be fulfilled, and that they both honoured it:
535-8 ‘Wit pæt gecwædon cnihtwesende
on gebeotedon -wæron begen pa git
on geogopfeore- pæt wit on garsecg ut
1
We need not go into the function of this scene, which is a clear instance of flyting, or
of Unferth himself -- he fulfils the role of the trickster, raising strife much as Loki
does in various Scandinavian texts (see e.g. Snorri Sturluson’s Edda: Skaldskaparmal 1, 33; see Simek 1984: 193 ff.), much as Efnisien does in The Mabinogion: Branwen Daughter of Llyr). A complementary view would hold that Unferth
is the Donor who, in fairytales, tests the hero before giving him the help or magic
object he is in need of (here, the sword Hrunting which Beowulf is to receive from
Unferth just before his battle against Grendel’s mother). On the fairytale structure
of the poem and on Unferth’s Donor-like status, see Barnes 1970.
12
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
aldrum nepdon; ond pæt geæfndon swa’.
‘As boys we two came to an agreement and boasted -we were both
then still in our youth- that we would risk our lives out on the
ocean; and we did just that’,
even while admitting (twice in three lines: ‘cnihtwesende’ (lit., ‘we being
boys’), ‘wæron begen pa git/ on geogopfeore’, ‘we were both then still in our
youth’) that they were very young at the time, i.e., that the boast was indeed
a foolish one. As the Wanderer poet puts it (70-2):
Beorn sceal gebidan, ponne he beot spricep
op-pæt collen-ferhp cunne gearwe
hwider hrepa gehygd hwerfan wille.
A man must wait before he utters a pledge until that person of bold
spirit is fully aware which way his mind’s thinking wants to turn
(Bradley).
A boast must not be uttered hastily or lightly, for it is a weighty thing.
The gnomic nature of this assertion conveys a definite attitude towards
boasts on the community’s part. They, as much as the narrator, expect the
boaster to carry out what he has pledged himself to do. This emerges from
the early scene where Hrothgar vows to build a great hall where he shall rule
and give riches away: the hall erected, He beot ne aleh (80), ‘He did not neglect his vow’; here ne aleh is another implicative, equivalent to porfte, and
the action of dispensing riches is viewed with approval by the poet and later
contrasted, by Hrothgar himself, with the miserly conduct of Heremod, who
ended up sharing his wealth with no-one (1709 ff.). The Battle of Maldon,
too, speaks of Eadric as acting rightly when he stands by his lord ready for
battle: beot he gelæste (Maldon 15), ‘he fulfilled his vow’, which is of a formulaic piece with gilp gelæsted (Beowulf 829); and again, when Byrhtnoth
falls, one of his retainers harangues the rest, urging them to make good their
oath (Maldon 212-4):
‘gemunap para mæla pe we oft æt mædu spræcon,
ponne we on bence beot ahofon,
hælep on healle, ymbe heard gewinn’
13
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
‘Let us call to mind those declarations we often uttered over mead,
when from our seat we heroes in hall would put up pledges about
tough fighting’ (Bradley).
Thus the important thing about beot is not that it should not be uttered
but that it must be honoured. Warriors who fail to do so are contemptible;
warriors who would utter a boastful pledge must reflect before doing so not
because boasts are not agreeable to God or some other superhuman power,
but because of the burden of having to comply with them. And if an enemy
utters beot, it is not the gods’ responsibility to punish him, but the hero’s
alone to make him eat his words, as we learn from Waldere (I, 26), when
Hildegyth praises the hero’s sword and urges him on against his antagonist:
‘[mit] py pu Guphere scealt
beot forbigan’
‘with it you shall put down the boasting of Guthhere’ (Bradley).
The thrust of my argument so far is that the sympathies of characters and
society may lie on the side of caution in the utterance of a boast, but, more
importantly, on the side of fulfilment once the boast has been uttered; while
contempt or pity characterize their reaction towards failure or refusal. Likewise, the attitudes of narrator and audience in Maldon, in The Wanderer, in
Beowulf are essentially in harmony with those of their fictional heroes and
societies: the audience are expected to agree with the sentiments expressed or
displayed by the characters, and this is borne out by the collocative bond between beot, gylp etc. and verbs of fulfilment like gelæstan, geæfnian, or ne
aleogan, as by the collocative bond between gylpan and a negated implicative like purfan; by the ethical consensus entailed by statements such as
Wanderer 70-2; and, in general, by the sorrowful or contemptuous attitude
displayed towards failure in living up to one’s boast.
4. BEOWULF ’S DOUBLE BOAST
Let us now examine one particular instance of beot. Twice does Beowulf
boast that he will fight Grendel without weapons. The first of these two pas-
14
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
sages runs from ll. 433 to 441; lines 440b-1 do not actually touch on the boast,
but will be relevant to the discussion later on:
433-41 ‘Hæbbe ic eac geahsod pæt se æglæca
for his wonhydum wæpna ne reccep.
Ic pæt ponne forhicge, swa me Higelac sie,
min mondrihten, modes blipe,
pæt ic sweord bere oppe sidne scyld,
geolorand to gupe; ac ic mid grape sceal
fon wip feonde ond ymb feorh sacan,
lap wip lapum. pær gelyfan sceal
Dryhtnes dome se pe hine deap nimep’.
‘Also, I have heard that in his recklessness the monster disdains
weapons. Therefore, so that my leader Hygelac may be glad at
heart on my account, I scorn to carry sword or broad shield, yellow
disc, into battle; but I shall grapple with the enemy with my bare
hands and fight to the death, foe against foe. He whom death then
takes must trust to the judgment of the Lord’.
The hero claims that ‘he has heard’ -and no-one in the audience gainsays
this - that Grendel ‘disdains weapons’, and therefore he himself will scorn to
carry sword or shield. The second passage runs from line 675 to 685a, but
again I will include the closing lines 685b-7 for reasons to be given later:
675-87 Gespræc pa se goda gylpworda sum,
Beowulf Geata, ær he on bed stige:
‘No ic me an herewæsmun hnagran talige
gupgeweorca ponne Grendel hine;
forpan ic hine sweorde swebban nelle,
aldre beneotan, peah ic eal mæge.
Nat he para goda, pæt he me ongean slea,
rand geheawe, peah pe he rof sie
nipgeweorca. Ac wit on niht sculon
secge ofersittan, gif he gesecean dear
wig ofer wæpen. Ond sippan witig God
on swa hwæpere hond, halig Dryhten,
mærpo deme, swa him gemet pince’.
Then before the great man got on to his bed, Beowulf of the Geats
spoke vaunting words: ‘I do not reckon myself inferior in warlike
vigour, for deeds of battle, than Grendel does himself; therefore I
will not put him to sleep, take away his life, with a sword, although
15
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
I easily could. He knows nothing of such noble matters -- that he
might strike against me, hew at the shield -- renowned though he
may be for hostile deeds. But in the night we both shall dispense
with the sword, if he dare seek a fight without weapons. And then
may the wise God, the holy Lord, assign the glory to whichever
side seems to him appropriate’.
Again he utters ‘some vaunting words’ (gylpworda sum), claiming for a
fact -and again no-one contradicts this - that Grendel knows nothing of
weapons, and so he will dispense with them too, so as to make it a fair fight.
Over 200 hundred lines later, while Beowulf is slowly wrenching Grendel’s
arm out of its socket, his men rush to his aid, only to discover -what they did
not know before- that Grendel has become invulnerable to swords through
magic:
801-5 pone synscapan
ænig ofer eorpan irenna cyst,
gupbilla nan gretan nolde,
ac he sigewæpnum forsworen hæfde,
ecga gehwylcre.
no war-sword, not the choicest of iron in the world, would touch
the evil ravager, for with a spell he had rendered victorious
weapons, all blades, useless.
Now this is an extraordinary coincidence: in an entirely innocent manner
the hero had hit upon the one way of defeating Grendel. Granted that this is a
familiar motif in folklore: the hero, often a simpleton, unerringly performs the
one unlikely action which can overcome his supernatural adversary.1 But the
specificity of the condition -Grendel can only be defeated by brute force- and
the inconsistent reasons Beowulf gives for his decision -Grendel disdains
weapons; Grendel knows nothing of weapons- cast a large shadow on this
‘coincidence’. The bare-handed combat and the monster’s invulnerability to
swords are related. The hero does not know (in fact, he remarks that he will
use no sword to slay the monster, peah ic eal mæge (680), ‘though I easily
could’) -- all the more praise to him, then, for his daring choice. But can the
poet have been ignorant of the causal link between the two facts? Can he
1
And is there not one more shred of evidence here to support the hypothesis of folkorigins for the poem?
16
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
have been ignorant of the traditional motif of swords that fail before a numinous adversary?1
The motif reappears in 1522 ff. After Beowulf dives into the mere with the
sword Hrunting, he comes face to face with the ogress, and as he hacks at her
he realizes Hrunting cannot avail him. He then trusts in his own strength,
which nearly costs him his life, until he manages to get hold of her sword;
this is presented as ealdsweord eotenisc (1558), ‘an ancient sword made by
giants’, and with it he easily beheads both her and her (already dead) son. It
becomes clear that the Grendel-kin cannot be wounded by man-wrought iron,
but are helpless before swords of a non-human origin.
The motif reappears once more in 2575 ff. There the hero faces his third
and most formidable enemy, the dragon, and as we saw above, on this occasion he cannot boast of a glorious victory because once more his sword
(Nægling) fails swa hyt no sceolde, ‘as it should not have done’. Just then,
Wiglaf rushes in wielding a sword described as ealdsweord eotenisc (2616);
and while Beowulf’s blade actually shatters against the dragon’s head,
Wiglaf’s sinks easily somewhere below the head. We can say that all three
monsters share this characteristic, that they are invulnerable to human
swords but can be killed by non-human weapons. The author uses the motif
explicitly and deliberately twice. We can therefore not claim that he was
ignorant of it. Now to return to the first fight: he has the right ingredients, he
twice makes the point about his hero’s not using weapons against Grendel,
and he must have known that a causal link exists between the monster’s
invulnerability and the need for a hand-to-hand combat. In other words, the
motif is there, in a submerged manner. Why did he not avail himself of it?
Why did he choose instead to let Beowulf opt for a wrestling match? As was
said earlier, all the more glory to the hero who decides to go unarmed into the
fight on the claim that his enemy scorns weapons or knows nothing of them.
But there is something more. For had Beowulf known that Grendel could
not be hurt by iron, the decision as to the proper manner of fighting would
have been taken out of his hands, and he would have been forced to wrestle
him; as it is, Beowulf freely chooses to wrestle him without being aware of a
reason for having to do so. In replacing the conventional motif with a heroic
1
On this motif, see Garbáty 1961, Lüthi 1975 (1987: 48).
17
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
boast, the poet enhances the strength and confidence of his hero; he lays the
ground for a gradual erosion of this confidence in subsequent battles (see
below); above all, he highlights the function of the will: in providing merely
ad hoc motivation (and an inconsistent one, to boot: does Grendel scorn
weapons, or does he know nothing of them?) for his hero’s repeated boast,
the poet makes sure we grasp the utterances in 433-40a and 677-85a as issuing from choice, not necessity. He stresses the arbitrary nature of the pledge;
he replaces a deed that would be merely imposed upon the hero with one
which is willed by him.
The double boast becomes a token of an outrageous arrogance: it pulverizes the notion of measure, of human limitations, of decorum; it is excessive.
Yet its excess does not rate censure but commendation on the part of his
hosts. The poet, too, sanctions this excessive language, and we know this
because we know that he sanctions boastful speech (see above), but also because in both instances he is careful to wrap his hero’s vaunting words in
discretion by having him, immediately after his boasts, humbly appeal to the
judgment of the Lord in 440b-1, to God’s will in 685b-87. These religious
references, by juxtaposing beot to a socially accepted system of values
(Christian ones), leave us in no doubt as to the poet’s attitude towards his
hero’s boast.
Beot is a freely performed act: it is willed. It conveys a determination to
achieve some difficult thing against all odds, and thus entails an exertion of
the will. When beot consists in a pledge of loyalty, it places no less than the
individual’s life on the line. At its most dramatic, beot is an outrageous challenge against the order of things. It thus entails some manner of opposition, a
disposition to disrupt some convention, to run a risk, to perform some excessive deed, to forgo some safeguard, or just to step beyond what is commonly
feasible or acceptable, thus committing the speaker to an action which will
place him beyond some accepted limit: a transcending, or a transgression.
Furthermore, beot carries important moral connotations: it must not be uttered lightly, but once uttered it must be honoured; society sanctions fulfilment and frowns upon renuence or failure. We may conclude that the culture
for which beot is an important part of the accepted code of conduct is a culture existing in a considerable degree of tension between the established order of things and a determination to transcend that order.
18
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
5. HYBRIS
In an impressive, and exhaustive, study (Hybris 1992), Fisher argues that
the Greek term hybris, whether appearing in literary or non-literary texts,
primarily stems from juridical discourse. He opposes the ‘traditional’ view,
according to which
hybris is held to be essentially an offence against the gods […]; it
is the act, word or even thought whereby the mortal forgets the
limitations of mortality, seeks to acquire the attributes of the gods,
or competes with the gods, or boasts overconfidently (Hybris: 2),
and argues instead that the term concerns notions of transgression against
another’s honour:
hybris is essentially the serious assault on the honour of another,
which is likely to cause shame, and lead to anger and attempts at
revenge. Hybris is often, but by no means necessarily, an act of
violence; it is essentially deliberate activity, and the typical motive
for such infliction of dishonour is the pleasure of expressing a
sense of superiority, rather than compulsion, need or desire for
wealth. Hybris is often seen to be characteristic of the young
and/or of the rich and/or upper classes; it is often associated with
drunkenness. Hybris thus most often denotes specific acts or general behaviour directed against others, rather than attitudes (ib.: 1).
The most extreme types of hybris are seen as behaviour essentially
antithetical to and threatening the fundamental bases of, civilized
living in communities; […] excessive love of violence and war,
failure to respect the obligations towards kin and friends, or to
control oneself at dangerous social occasions, especially those involving drink […]. [Such behaviour was often attributed] to a variety of mythological or putatively ‘historical’ figures who oppose,1
1
The text says "who operate", but this does not make sense, and Fisher’s book is unfortunately plagued with misprints and omissions.
19
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
from the margins or from ‘outside’, the divinely appointed social
order (ib.: 500).1
In fact, twenty years before Fisher’s study, Pierre Chantraine’s Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (published in 1968 and reprinted in
1984) had already recognized just this fundamental legal sense of the word:
Hybris: violence injuste, provoquée par la passion, violence,
démesure, outrage, coups portés à une personne, le terme ayant
une valeur juridique […] Hybris est un terme important pour la
pensée morale et juridique des Grecs. Chez Homère, il caractérise la
violence brutale, qui viole les règles (1150).
Thus Prometheus commits hybris when he steals the fire of the gods and
gives it to humankind, and again when he shouts defiance against vengeful
Zeus. On the other hand, in a play such as Aeschylus’ The Persians no
amount of ingenuity can erase the fact that it is Zeus who “chastises
thoughts which are too proud” (Persians 827-8), or the fact that Xerxes’ crime
consists not merely in dishonouring the Greeks but in “harming the gods with
overbold and reckless deeds” (ib.: 831-2). And our problem becomes how to
reconcile this undeniable offense against the gods with the juridical notion of
honour; is it perhaps the honour of the gods that is outraged? I believe the
answer is to be obtained elsewhere. Fisher acknowledges that hubristic behaviour was lavishly attributed to invaders, and thus not only the Persians
but also the Seven against Thebes, as well as the Giants and Titans who
sought to overrun Olympus, are credited with hybris (Fisher 503); he also
points out that the central image of hybris in The Persians is that of the yoke:
the yoke of slavery threatened on Greece and intimated by that “major
symbol of improper ‘yoking’ throughout the play [which] is the attempt to
erase the natural boundary between Europa and Asia, ‘to yoke’ the sea at the
Hellespont” with a vast pontoon (Fisher 257). And one point which time and
again crops up in discussions of Greek tragedy and of hybris is that the two
are bound up with the commission of “acts of the greatest dishonour against
men and, in Xerxes’ case, against gods and the natural order as well”
(Fisher 261), with “brutal violence which violates the rules” (Chantraine),
1
Tantalos, Ixion, Sisiphus, Salmoneus, Odysseus’ Cyclops and Penelope’s suitors
are given by Fisher as among those hybris-led figures who oppose the divinely
established order.
20
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
with acts such as “crossing limits beyond which there is danger” (Ewans1),
with acting “outside the bounds by which all human activity should be
limited” (Dihle 1982: 188) (my emphasis). Hybris in this light constitutes a
transgression of the appointed order, whether social, natural, divine or
cosmic; and though the term may have originated in the realm of juridical
discourse -the etymology of hybris is obscure-, its use in epic and drama
often transcends a purely legal sense and, without in the least excluding the
latter, enters the moral and religious dimensions where the fundamental
concept is that of the boundary transgressed.
In other words, hybris is not simply excessive pride but a transgression of
the social, natural, divine, or cosmic order, and hence an act which must be
countered by the forces of order, not only by way of punishment but equally
in prevention of greater evil. Hybris is a violation of kosmos -in all the senses
of the Greek word: ‘order’, ‘form’, ‘universe’, ‘social world’, ‘arrangement’,
‘ornament’, ‘honour’, ‘glory’ (Chantraine)-, thereby attracting upon itself a
moral retaliation, Nemesis, because it threatens to plunge the world into
chaos.
Several similarities can be found between beot and hybris. To begin with,
both are actions. The one is a speech act, the other a deed which may be verbal: of Capaneus’ boast (The Seven Against Thebes) that he will sack the city
“whether god wants it or not” (426-7), we are told it “exceeds the power of
mortal thought” (425), and we are further advised that his words “swell like
waves and spatter Zeus” (443). This is a description of perlocutionary language, of a language which affects reality. Of Astakos, a champion sent
against proud Tydeus in the same play, it is said that “he hates all words that
go too far” (410). The notion of transgression is there in both instances, and
attached to a language which exceeds the limits imposed by the powers governing a proper relationship between human and god. In the second place,
both are acts to the performance of which the will is central: they are voluntary deeds. In the third place, both involve -factually or by intention- a transcendence or transgression of limits, a going beyond some pale. As a result,
1
"Precisely the tragic dimension of Xerxes’ position -and of Agamemnon’s- is that in
pursuing the goals which an agathos had to pursue qua agathos, they were obliged
to cross limits beyond which there is danger (crossing the Hellespont, sacrificing
Iphigeneia to Artemis), and chose paths which led to disaster" (Ewans 1996: xxii).
21
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
both expose the agent to dangers arising from this going beyond the pale.1
The major difference between them lies in the attitude the community exhibits
towards the agents. The Greeks consider it a moral duty to refrain from
hybris, and the hybristes is urged -however much sympathy he may deserveto retreat from his position lest he bring Nemesis upon himself and his. The
Anglo-Saxon culture, on the other hand, may chide the utterer of beot for
lightly engaging in a weighty pledge, but expects him in any case to carry it
out. Hybris consists in a manifestation of the individual’s will which involves
the violation of a set of norms and which must therefore be curtailed: it is a
moral duty to refrain from hybris. Beot consists in a manifestation of the individual’s will which has as its intended result a transcending the expected
run of things, and which must be fulfilled. In the case of hybris, proper behaviour demands the repression by the individual of his inclination. In the
case of beot, proper behaviour demands care in the vow, but fulfilment once
the vow has been uttered.
Hybris is seen to be destructive, not so much because it denotes
arrogance or because it defies the gods, but because it challenges the
accepted order: stability is under threat by hybris. By contrast, in the case of
beot there is a conviction that the order of things is inimical to the
individual’s purposes, and a conviction that the individual’s will may be
legitimately employed to mo dify it. Thus challenging Breca means defying
both the natural elements and the limitations of human nature; facing the
dragon means engaging an enemy no-one has dared face before; determining
to fight Grendel without weapons means freely giving oneself an
unreasonable handicap. Both beot and hybris constitute a defiance against
the order of things. To the proposition ‘The world is thus and thus’, the
agent in both cases replies: ‘I challenge that’. But whereas hybris entails
punishment and a welcome restoration of equilibrium, beot receives the
sympathies and encouragement of comitatus, poet and audience alike.
Whereas the Greek outlook tends to respect the order of things and fears to
upset it, the Anglo-Saxon sees with satisfaction attempts at modifying it,
regrets or condemns failure to do so after the promise has been made, and
1
Furthermore, hybris is associated with drunkenness; and it is worth noticing that
beot, too, is often uttered over drinks; whether this link is significant will largely
depend on the degree of symbolism we are willing to attach to drink, the cup, the
drink-bearers, the drink-benches and so on in the Germanic and Classic traditions
(see Aguirre 1996).
22
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
views disparagingly those forces which seem to thwart such aspirations. And
this is where the notion of Fate becomes central to our enquiry.
6. W YRD
Scholars have for some decades sought to render OE wyrd as ‘event’,
‘deed’, ‘fact’ and to minimize destinal readings. Few of us want to be caught
arguing for a concept of ‘Germanic fatalism’ which was fashionable until the
nineteen-twenties (Stanley 1964). No such concept need be appealed to,
however, by a translation of wyrd as ‘fate’, and in many instances this is the
only sensible translation. As I have argued the point elsewhere, I will limit
myself to stating without proof that wyrd means “fate”, and that, whether we
read it or not as personification (a goddess of Fate), it occupies a central
place in Beowulf.1
Let us for a minute return to Beowulf’s boast to fight Grendel single-handedly. Were he to arm himself against Grendel, and were his sword to fail him
in his hour of need, this fight would not differ from the second one, and a
sense of progression towards disaster would not be created. By altering the
inherited motif in the first fight while respecting it in the second and third, the
poet allows himself an initial image of a supremely confident Beowulf acting
out of an indomitable will and awakening our admiration. But this supreme
confidence is going to be subsequently whittled down by stages over the
next two fights, gradually eliciting from us a very different kind of reaction:
not so much admiration for the unconquerable power of the hero’s will as for
his desperate courage. The will does not weaken, its effectiveness does. One
way to look at the poem is in terms of this growing futility of the heroic that
will in the face of a power beyond the hero’s control -- the power of Fate.
Futility is here meant, of course, in the sense of practical results obtained.
Morally, Beowulf’s conduct is impeccable, his courage never slackens. But
Wyrd, Fate, does not appear as a moral agent, rewarding appropriate conduct
or punishing the transgression of some divine law -- wyrd is no providential
principle, rather it constitutes an impersonal, blind force acting according to
1
See Aguirre 1995 and Aguirre (forthcoming).
23
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
pre-established patterns and moving inexorably towards destruction; wyrd is
not divine justice, but sheer inevitability. And the only thing which may avert
Fate, we are told -and only temporarily at that- is either the will of God or the
will of man, as manifested in a display of courage:
572-3 Wyrd oft nerep
unfægne eorl, ponne his ellen deah.
Fate will often spare a man not yet destined for death, when his
courage is good.1
1056-7 […] nefne him witig God wyrd forstode
ond pæs mannes mod
[…] if wise God and the man’s courage had not averted that fate.
But of course, ultimately, not even the will of man will be enough. For just
as it is not human action that brings about a retribution -as it still is in
Aeschylus and in the Iliad-, so it is not human action that can effectively alter the course of wyrd. In contrast to Nemesis, which is an explicit agent of
moral retribution, Wyrd, the force which leads all to dissolution in the AngloSaxon poem, is simply in the nature of things -- almost another term for it is
entropy; this is why no moral law stands in the way of the individual’s
transgressing an abstract order -- but equally, no moral law guarantees success as a reward to the heroic exertion.
An act of courage which averts that which was preordained is precisely
what the utterer of beot intends. The extreme, most dramatic kind of beot we
have been considering here is a challenge entailing, in principle, some such
deed as will alter the foreseeable and the certain, the conventional and the
acceptable. But in spite of several glorious victories, the poem is so constructed as inexorably to lead the hero, and his people, to failure and disaster.2 Failure, let us insist, not because Beowulf’s bravery or determination
waver, but because his self-sacrifice fails to obtain the desired result. Not
only is he abandoned by those he sought to protect, but the last word is on
the side of hopelessness, as the Geats bury the treasure he had tragically
1
2
On the view that fæge is used in an effort to divest wyrd of some of its attributes,
see my forthcoming "After Word Comes Weird".
On the notion that the poem’s structure contributes to establishing the presence of
overwhelming Fate, see Bonjour 1950: 33-4, 42, 44-6, 69, passim.
24
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
striven to obtain, thereby -in spite of the noble king’s effort- surrendering to
their fate. And disaster: Wiglaf’s forebodings of doom as a result of the warband’s inability to hold to their central oath of loyalty (another beot) are followed by the Geatish woman’s predictions of defeat and captivity on the occasion of Beowulf’s funeral; her words of mourning for a dead hero are also a
dirge for his doomed nation. Courage is then one key to alter that which was
ordained; yet in spite of great exertions, courage eventually proves not
enough. It will be resorted to, by the bravest, to the last, perhaps because
there is nothing else. But in the end the best of efforts will not halt the run of
things: gæp a wyrd swa hio scel (455), ‘Fate will always go as it must’.
The drift of my argument is that this poem strives towards a transcendence of wyrd. This is the reason so much emphasis is placed, here as elsewhere
in Old English heroic poetry, on the individual’s will, as manifested in his
beot and in subsequent acts of bravery against some unspecified but overpowering order of things. M.Swanton makes this point explicitly for Beowulf:
Beowulf dismisses his comitatus, but continues to act in the light
of the ethical requirements of that group. He believes for an instant
-the instant of beot- that he may overcome the dragon, that he may
peserve the way of life they all know. The hero defies his fate, but
in a spirit of resignation: fate will go always as it must; a man can
achieve so much, and no more; he cannot, after all, live for ever.
His decision may seem to be brought about by pride but, unlike the
classical hybris, it is external and clear, not what he but society
expects (Swanton 1978 (1990: 27)).
And E.V.Gordon put it lucidly in a statement on the Germanic epic:
[For the hero of Old Norse literature] the heroic problem of life lay
primarily in the struggle for freedom of the will, against the pains of
the body, and the fear of death, against fate itself. The hero was in
truth a champion of the free will of man against fate […]. As it
happens, however, the most definite statement in Germanic literature of heroic doctrine is not in Norse but in the Anglo-Saxon
poem The Battle of Maldon. The old retainer, Byrhtwold, making
his last stand, exhorts the survivors who are with him: ‘The mind
must be the harder, the heart the keener, the spirit the greater, as
our strength grows less’ (Gordon 1927 (1990: xxx f.)).
25
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
‘Do I dare disturb the universe?’, asks T.S.Eliot’s Prufrock. Beowulf and
Byrhtwold dare the universe every time they utter a boast. Beot is not simply
a matter of swearing to do something, but of a significant, sustained, and
tragic (because of its ultimate futility) effort to push the borders of the established order further and further away from us, and to assert the individual’s
will at the centre of an all-too-ordered cosmos.
In all this, there is no question of a ‘fatalistic strain’ in Germanic thought.
What may happen is that, as the Christian doctrine emerges with a viable
formulation of the human existence in terms of free will, dispersed or rarified
tendencies in that direction on the part of the Anglo-Saxon culture may acquire impetus and a focal point: perhaps for the first time, a firm leverage is
obtained against the traditional view, and dissatisfaction with this view
grows in direct proportion to the possibilities of a viable alternative. At a
certain point in this process, the culture concerned may begin to speak of
Fate -under whatever name- as of a force which thwarts human aspirations.
Whether it may turn out that ‘fatalism’ is an important cultural concept only
in those societies which have (recently) embraced Christianity, is beyond the
scope of this article to elucidate. My point is that Beowulf represents a
glimpse into a new way of thinking -- a way of thinking not clearly formu lated
-- one which Christianity is to foster but which in Beowulf cannot quite be
sustained. The stupendous notion that the future depends on individual acts
and not on some pre-established pattern, that it is possible to modify the
individual’s destiny by acts of will -- this notion had been developed by the
fifth century, and seems to be getting hold -whether or not under Christian
influence- of the Germanic culture of our poem. Its concern with freedom of
the will places Beowulf squarely in the middle of a current of thought which
runs parallel to, and at points merges with or is influenced by, Christian tradition since Augustine. In the work of this philosopher, especially in De
libero arbitrio, the design of a Christian model which enshrines the triumph
of the will is virtually complete, and will not be challenged for over a thousand years. Christianity was aware that the only way of transcending the earlier, myth-bound culture was to extol the individual will and thus the possibility for endless innovation and modification of the human universe.
Beowulf is not yet there: the poem has not made the transition -- for if it
had, it would be aware of a purposeful order of things arranged providentially
for the benefit of the human cause. There is no sign of Providence in the
26
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
poem except where translators choose to render wyrd as “Providence” -- a
choice which (mostly) reads modern notions into an ancient text. In its outlook vis -à-vis Fate, Beowulf is not quite a Christian poem but rather represents a liminal stage in the struggle between a mentality which accepts preestablished patterns (such as is conveyed by the term hybris) and another
which seeks to emancipate itself from such patterns (as manifested in the
Christian fostering of the will). In between these two, the mentality evinced in
the concept of beot cherishes the individual’s will yet succumbs to the preestablished. And so the poem is shaped by a tragic combination of acceptance and (ultimately failed) revolt.
7. A LITERATURE OF THE W ILL
There is no such concept as free will in the Iliad or in the plays of
Aeschylus. This statement does not mean that determinism rules Classical
Greek texts, merely that the will does not exist as a separate category of the
human mind. “The notion of will has no corresponding word in either philosophical or non-philosophical Greek” (Dihle 1982: 18).When the physician
Diocles ( + 300 B.C.) sought to define the psychological aspects of an empty
stomach, he referred on the one hand to the animal instinct of hunger, on the
other to the reasoning leading to a decision to eat:
Our term “will” denotes only the resulting intention, leaving out
any special reference to thought, instinct, or emotion as possible
sources of that intention. Greek, on the other hand, is able to express intention only together with one of its causes, but never in
its own right (ib.: 24).
That is, the will appears to the Greeks as the culmination of either a rational process or of instinct, which for them is the irrational. And so the discussion of the will is fundamentally bound up with issues of the intellect,
knowledge, epistemology:
The twofold psychology that explains human behaviour on the
basis of the interaction of rational and irrational forces and has no
27
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
room for the concept of will prevails throughout the Greek tradition
from the time of Homer onwards (ib.: 27).
In early anthropological theories, the Greeks tended to attribute
tenacity and stubbornness, that is to say qualities of the human
will in the modern view, to the irrational part of man’s personality
(ib.: 177).
This explains why Xerxes’ decision to invade the Hellas is blamed by
Darius and the Queen on a) ignorance, b) a daimon’s influence and c) a sick
mind (Persians 274-51). Against such an ideological background, hybris,
understood as “acting outside the bounds by which all human activity
should be limited” (ib.: 188), is attributed to ignorance of one’s real position.
If, for us, the will is involved in hybris, for the Greeks the intellect is central to
it; and tragedy ensues because the characters cannot make decisions that will
effectively change the course of events:
In a Greek tragedy everything that could have been otherwise has
already happened before the play begins, and it is impossible at
any point in the play to call out to the hero, ‘Don’t choose this,
choose that’. He is already in the trap. In an Elizabethan tragedy, in
Othello, for example, there is no point before he actually murders
Desdemona when it would be impossible for him to control his
jealousy, discover the truth, and convert the tragedy into a
comedy (Auden & Pearson 1950 (1977: xxix)).
We may well speak of two historically differentiated types of literature in
medieval times. The first is a literature of memory, or of ritual, which fundamentally repeats pre-established patterns and does so according to
pattern; action is in it pre-programmed, outcomes are known in advance by
the audience, much material is repeated, extensive use is made of formulaic
language; this literature may be best represented by the early epic or the
fairytale, and is reflected in the medieval historian’s preoccupation with
‘inventing’ nothing and appealing to ancient authority instead. The second is
a literature of the will, or of action, in which the individual’s decisions shape
his own destiny; the ballad, the later European epic (e.g. the Spanish Poema
del Cid) and the romance are easy examples of this; repetition and formulaic
language may abound here too, but the central concern is with the hero’s
28
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
ability to assert his purposes and carry them out against all odds, culminating
in success. No literary class or genre is ‘pure’, and we need not expect any
given text to accommodate itself to either type. But if one were to venture
sweeping statements, it would make much sense to say that the Middle Ages,
especially after the 11th century, witness the flowering of a literature of the
will, manifested in the romances, in the love poetry of the troubadours, in the
lais of Marie de France, as well as in so many texts of direct Christian inspiration (hagiographical narrative, Dante’s Commedia, Mariological texts, and
so on).
Classical Greek literature (again with all kinds of restrictions) is by and
large associated with the first type. The difference between the two types becomes clear when we compare e.g. Achilles and Gawain. The options confronting Achilles -to die young and famous, to live long in obscurity- are
redolent of fate: he does not so much decide upon a course of action as accepts one or other destiny. Sir Gawain’s choices only lead him to further
choices: at every turn a new course of conduct is open for him to follow or
reject. Furthermore, it is never his long-term destiny that is at stake, nor will
he die at the end of the standard Gawain-romance, for the narrative stops at
the point where the hero succeeds (or, as in Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, is chastised), in a celebration of the will. Beowulf occupies a middle
position. It has advanced beyond the first type in its recognition of the
importance and value of the will in shaping the individual’s destiny; it falls
short of the second type in its failure to shake off the trappings of ritual, of a
formu laic reality, of a cosmic fate.
Manuel Aguirre
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
29
Manuel Aguirre
____________________________________________________________________
REFERENCES
Aeschylus. See Ewans 1996.
Aguirre, Manuel 1995: Some Thoughts on the Semantics of Old English Wyrd,
in Santano & al (eds.) Papers from the VII International SELIM
Conference, Cáceres, University of Extremadura: 9-21.
Aguirre, Manuel 1996: Life, Crown, and Queen: Gertrude and the Theme of
Sovereignty, in The Review of English Studies.
Aguirre, Manuel (forthcoming): After Word Comes Weird: Wyrd and
Collocation in Old English. To appear in English as a Human Language (ed. J. van der Auwera).
Auden, W. H & Pearson, Norman Holmes (eds.) 1950: Elizabethan and
Jacobean Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1977.
Barnes, Daniel 1970: Folktale Morphology and the Structure of Beowulf.
Speculum 45: 416-34.
Battle of Maldon, The. See Pope (ed.) 1966.
Beowulf. See Swanton 1978.
Bjork, R. E. & Niles, J. D. (eds.) 1996: A Beowulf Handbook. Exeter: University
of Exeter Press 1997.
Bonjour, Adrien 1950: The Digressions in Beowulf. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Bosworth, Joseph and Toller, T. Northcote 1898: An Anglo-Saxon
Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1991.
Bradley, S. A. J. (tr.) 1982: Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: Dent 1987.
Chantraine, Pierre 1968: Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque.
Paris: Éditions Klincksieck 1990.
Dihle, Albrecht 1982: The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Ewans, Michael (tr.)1996: Aeschylus’ Suppliants and Other Dramas. London:
Everyman.
30
«Beot», Hybris and the Will in Beowulf
____________________________________________________________________
Fisher, N. R. E. 1992: Hybris: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in
Ancient Greece. Warminster: Aries & Phillips.
Garbáty, Thomas J. 1961: The Fallible Sword: Inception of a Motif. Journal of
American Folklore 75: 58-9.
Gordon, E. V. 1927: An Introduction to Old Norse (2nd edition revised by A.
R. Taylor). Oxford: OUP. 1990.
Hoey, Michael 1991: Patterns of Lexis in Text. Oxford: OUP.
Lord, Albert B. 1960: The Singer of Tales. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Lüthi, Max 1975: The Fairytale as Art Form and Portrait of Man (tr.
J.Erickson). Bloomington: Indiana UP 1987.
Mabinogion, The (tr. G. Jones & T. Jones). London: Dent 1978.
Magoun, Francis P. 1953: The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon
Narrative Poetry. Speculum 28: 446-67.
O’Brien O’Keefe, Katherine 1996: Diction, Variation, the Formula. Bjork &
Niles (eds.) 1996: 85-104.
Parry, Milman 1930: Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making. I:
Homer and Homeric Style. Harvard, Mass.: Harvard Studies in
Classical Philology 41.
Pope, John C. (ed.) 1966 Seven Old English Poems. New York: Norton 1981.
Simek, Rudolf 1984: Dictionary of Northern Mythology (tr. A.Hall).
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer 1996.
Stanley, E. G. 1964: The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism. Cambridge and
Totowa, New Jersey: D. S. Brewer / Rowman & Littlefield 1975.
Swanton, M. (ed. and tr.) 1978: Beowulf. Manchester: Manchester U. P.
Waldere. In Old English Minor Heroic Poems (ed. J. Hill). Durham, Durham
Medieval Texts 4, 1983.
Wanderer, The . See Pope (ed.) 1966.
*†*
31
EXTERNAL CONTROL IN FUNCTIONAL SYNTAX:
FORMULATING LME CONSTITUENT ORDER RULES1
0. INTRODUCTION
Following Dik (1978: 20; 1989: 359) as regards functional patterns, Connolly (1991) has explained ME constituent order by means of expression rules
of the kind used by Functional Grammar that are based on: syntactic
templates, which specify the number of empty positions in a given structure;
placement rules, which determine the insertion of major clause constituents in
the syntactic slots of the template; and functional patterns, which describe
the linearization of the major constituents of the clause. Let us offer a simple
illustration of Connolly’s model. Given a syntactic template such as (1.a), the
placement rules in (1.b) turn out the functional pattern in (1.c):
(1)
a. Px-Py -Pz
b. Insert constituent A into position Px
if condition Ci holds
Insert constituent B into position Py
if condition Cj holds
Insert constituent C into position Pz
if condition Ck holds
c. A-B-C
Connolly’s model is not only ingenious and elegant but also consistent
with the philosophic underpinnings of the functional paradigm; moreover, it
1
The research resulting in this paper has been funded by the Vicerrectorado de Investigación de la Universidad de La Rioja through the research project 96PYB33JMA,
entitled Aspectos metodológicos de la investigación lingüística en un paradigma
funcional: diacronía y sincronía (1996).
Javier Martín Arista, Selim 6 (1998): 32—50
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
is based on an extensive quantitative analysis and has been rigurously tested
through computer implementation. However, Connolly’s approach is mainly
syntactic: the stronghold of his study is syntactic description and
explanation. This is no wonder since linearization is, along with constituency,
the essence of syntax. Our point is that a functionally-oriented syntax should
be guided by the principle of external control, in the sense given by Kuno
(1980: 126): syntactic description should be based on non-syntactic
explanation. Connolly’s order rules, in contrast, are dependable almost
exclusively on syntactic factors, for two reasons: firstly, because he attempts
to provide an explanation for the drift SOV-SVO; and, secondly, because his
main purpose is to be able to offer an implementation of the rules on the
computer.
In this paper we try to offer a more functionally-oriented study than Connolly’s in two respects: in offering an external explanation of syntactic phenomena relating to the order of constituent in LME and in dealing with syntactic constructions with which Connolly does not cope: passives, duplication, discontinuity, coordination and subordination.
This paper is organized as follows 1: in section 1 we put forward the data
yielded by our study of a corpus of one thousand LME examples. In section 2
we offer a sketchy view of the theoretical model we espouse in our discussion and we concentrate on syntactic discontinuity, relative order and absolute order problems. In section 3 we summarize the main points of the article.
1. THE DATA
1
The following abbreviations appear in this paper: FG (functional grammar), S
(subject), O (object), Od (direct object), Oi (indirect object), AUX (auxiliary), V
(verb) Vf (finite verb), Vn (non-finite verb), Ag (semantic function agent), Man
(semantic function manner), Loc (semantic function locative), Temp (semantic
function time), VF (verb in final position), X (a major constituent of the clause
other than subject, object, verb, negative morpheme and auxiliary), NEG (negative
morpheme), TOP (topic), FOC (focus), m (marked), um (unmarked), PX (syntactic
position number x), PF (clause-final position), VX (verb in syntactic position number x), DECL (clause operator declarative), INT (clause operator interrogative),
NEG (clause operator negative), IMP (clause operator imperative) and OPT (clause
operator optative).
33
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
From the methodological point of view, we suscribe to the view (found,
among others, in Givón (1984/1990, 1995)) that qualitative conclusions, that
is, the explanation of linguistic phenomena in the synchronic and the diachronic dimensions, must be based on a quantitative study, that is, on a rigorous description of the data under scrutiny.1
The corpus of this study consists of one thousand LME (1300-1450) examples: one hundred instances have been extracted from Chaucer’s translation of Boetius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ, Book II (in Navarro et al.
1991: 101-126), quoted as CHB; and another nine hundred have been taken
from The Wycclifite Sermons, 1-70 (Macintosh file by Professor González
Fernández-Corugedo, Universidad de La Coruña), quoted as WS.
Given that the purpose of this study is to account for such phenomena as
syntactic discontinuity in LME, we have put aside active constructions, in
which syntactic discontinuity is far less frequent than in (prose) passives. In
this sense, passive constructions are older than their active equivalents and
accept embraciated constituents, which is not the case with their active counterparts.2
As is well known, the reliability of a linguistic corpus largely depends on
the choice rather than on the number of examples one selects for his study.
Consequently, we have selected examples that cover all the types found in
Visser’s (1984: 2165ff) repertoire.3
The figures in table 1 show that a vast majority of examples display syntactic continuity: X constituents do not break into the Vf-Vn continuum. This
generalization applies both to independent and dependent clauses. The fig1
See also Hopper and Traugott (1993: 32 ff) and Harris & Campbell (1995: 61 ff).
For a more detailed discussion, we refer the reader to Martín Arista (1995).
3
Our examples conform to the these patterns (following Visser’s own classification):
(i) Type pær beop pa wanigendan welras gefylde; (ii) Type He wæs læred pis fram
Silvestre; (iii) Type Eadwine wearp ofslagen; (iv) Type Ic geaf him a book; (v)
Type To-morrow worp pe Marriage I-mad of Meede and of Fæls; (vi) Type Wearp
geworden; (vii) Type She were worthy to be blamed; (viii) Type Be ruled by me; (ix)
Type He was given a book; (x) Type Hanged worpe he on an hok!; (xi) Type
Sleep could be had in the wash-house; (xii) Type It is said that John had an accident; (xiii) Type There was quite a bit of fun poked at American scholars; (xiv)
Type Gode be pancod; (xv) Type Hi wæron gederede; (xvi) Type He is found
treacherous/a traitor; (xvii) Type Mon him ofteah para clapa; (xviii) Type He is
wyrp eallra synna geclænsod and (xix) Type He waes heafde becorfen.
2
34
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
ures in table 1 show that most examples display syntactic continuity: X
constituents do not break into the Vf-Vn continuum. This statement is applicable both to independent and dependent clauses. Syntactic discontinuity
usually turns up as discontinuity of degree 1, in other words, the verbal
complex is only interrupted by one X constituent. It seems sensible, then, to
describe discontinuous constructions as marked ones. If this remark is valid,
several degrees of markedness might be distinguished, because, in the light
of the statistical study, X constituents appear much more frequently between
Vf and Vn than S.
Syntactic discontinuity
Continuous constructions (Vf-Vn)
Discontinuous constructions (Vf-X-Vn)
Degree of discontinuity 1 (Vf-X-Vn)
Degree of discontinuity 1 (Vf-S-Vn)
Degree of discontinuity 1 (Vf-X-Vn)
Degree of discontinuity 2 (Vf-X-Y-Vn)
Degree of discontinuity 3 (Vf-X-Y-Z-Vn)
examples
871
129
122
12
110
6
1
total
1,000
1,000
129
122
122
129
129
%
87.1
12.9
94.5
9.9
90.1
4.6
0.7
Table 1: Syntactic discontinuity in the corpus.
As is displayed in table 2, the order Vf-Vn (copular verb-past participle) in
preferred in LME in more than 97% of the cases, to the exclusion of Vn -Vf
order. Consequently, we describe Vn -Vf order, at least in DECL clauses, as
marked, Vf-Vn being described as unmarked. This generalization holds both
for syntactic continuity and syntactic discontinuity. However, as we shall see
in the discussion, the order Vn -Vf is not marked with clause operators other
than DECL, such as OPT.
Relative order of Vf and Vn
Vf-Vn
Vf-Vn (syntactic continuity)
Vf-Vn (syntactic discontinuity)
Vn-Vf
Vn-Vf (syntactic continuity)
Vn-Vf (syntactic discontinuity)
examples
972
845
127
28
26
2
Table 2: Relative order of Vf and Vn in the corpus.
35
total
1,000
972
972
1,000
28
28
%
97.2
86.9
13
2.8
92.8
7.1
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
As table 3 shows, Vn ---P1 constructions are more frequent than Vf---P1
ones. The figures demand a certain context since V1 constructions represent
less than 5% of the clauses in the corpus. These figures evidence that V1
DECL clauses are marked, as we have just suggested. There remains the
question whether V1 OPT, IMP and INT clauses are unmarked, as our reasoning leads to hold, or not.
Absolute order: V1
V1
Vf---P1
Vf---P1 (DECL)
Vf---P1 (NEG)
Vf---P1 (syntactic continuity)
Vf---P1 (syntactic discontinuity)
Vf---P1/Vn ---P4
Vn---P1
Vn---P1/Vf---P2
Vn---P1/Vf---P4
Vn---P1 (syntactic continuity)
Vf---P1 (syntactic discontinuity)
examples
43
19
17
2
4
15
4
24
22
0
22
2
total
1,000
43
19
19
19
19
19
43
24
24
24
24
%
4.3
44.1
89.4
10.5
21
78.9
21
55.8
91.6
0
91.6
8.3
Table 3: V1 constructions in the corpus.
As regards Vf and Vn in P2, almost 75% of LME passive clauses are V2
clauses. As is shown in table 4, among the V2 cases, Vf---P2 cases constitute
a great majority. V2, then, is the unmarked ordering. As we have already put
forward, the unmarked order in DECL clauses is S-V (vs. V-S), Vf-Vn (vs. Vn Vf) and Vf-Vn-X (vs. Vf-X-Vn). Among the V2 cases, Vf-2 clauses are almost
100%, which makes these instances unmarked with respect to Vn ---P2 ones,
which are considered as marked. Table 4 also indicates the order of passive
DECL dependent clauses does not differ from the order of independent ones
in LME. We can also see that Vf---P2 usually correlates with Vn ---P4, as a
result, as our discussion will show, of the presence of X in P3.
36
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
Absolute order: V2
Vf---P2/Vn ---P2
Vf---P2
Vn---P2
Vn---P2 (independent clauses)
Vn---P2 (dependent clauses)
Vf---P2/Vn ---P4
Vn---P2/Vf---P4
examples
720
711
9
4
5
111
0
total
1,000
720
720
9
9
111
111
%
72.0
98.7
1.2
44.4
55.5
100
0
Table 4: V2 constructions in the corpus.
With reference to VF, this construction is relatively infrequent in the corpus (about 20%). Practically all VF clauses are Vn ---P4 clauses, as table 5
displays. In P4 templates VF is, therefore, marked. In our discussion we shall
try to demonstrate that what is marked in these clauses is not Vn: Vn ---P4 is
the result of the displacement caused by X constituents with special pragmatic relevance. This happens both in dependent and independent clauses.
Absolute order: VF
Vf---P4/Vn ---P4
Vf---P4
Vn---P4
examples
201
1
200
total
1,000
201
201
%
20
0.5
99.5
Table 5: VF constructions in the corpus.
2. DISCUSSION
For the discussion of the data we have just offered, we adopt the theoretical model of Functional Grammar as presented in Dik (1978, 1989).
As regards the treatment of the assignment of pragmatic functions, we resort to the typology of pragmatic functions advanced by Dik et al. (1981:
41ff), de Jong (1981: 89ff) and Dik (1989: 268ff). We have suggested elsewhere
(Martín Arista 1994a, 1994b), that the typology of syntactic functions put
forward by Dik (1989) might be modified by following the proposals made in
37
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
Dezsó (1978) and Halliday (1985).1 The model advanced in Martín Arista
(1994a, 1994b) can be summarized as follows: we consider unmarked those
constituents with special pragmatic relevance that are signalled by intonation
contour alone and marked those constituents with special pragmatic
relevance that are signalled by the intonation contour of the clause plus a
special position in the linear order of the clause. Pragmatic function markedness is thus defined in terms of clause position of the constituent to which a
given function is assigned (plus sentence stress assignment, in order to
avoid circularity).2
With reference to the form and function of placement rules, we follow, in
the first place, Dik (1989). We also draw on Connolly (1991: 27ff), who has
modified the status of the functional pattern proposed by Dik (1978: 20ff):3
Connolly (1991: 57 ff) regards functional patterns as having derived -rather
than primary- status with respect to syntactic templates, which specify the
number syntactic positions in the linear order of the clause. However, we do
not take the template to be invariable, as Connolly does, but as offering a
variable number of empty slots in such a way that no structure-changing operation is needed.4
1
The distinction drawn by Halliday (1985: 45) between marked and unmarked
themes is of special interest for our purposes. In declarative clauses, Theme is normally assigned to S. The construction in which the S bears the function Theme is
the unmarked option; when Theme is assigned to constituents other than S in DECL
clauses, we come across instances of Marked Theme. For an alternative view, we
refer the reader to Hannay (1990) and Mackenzie and Keizer (1991).
2
This treatment is eclectic in the sense that it is coherent with the proposals by Halliday (1985), Cruttenden (1986), Dik (1989) and Bossong (1989). We have followed
Bossong as regards the existence of a markedness hierarchy but not as regards partial marking as a result of TOPm. Another proposal on which we have drawn is
made in Bolkestein (1987). According to Bolkestein (1987: 167) there is no incompatibility for clauses between offering focal information and being expressed hypotactically. We also follow Bolkestein (1985: 1 ff) as regards the theoretical justification for a clausal treatment of TOP and FOC, although we do not deny the existence of the TOP continuum advanced by Givón (1983) and followed, to some extent, by Dik (1989: 263 ff). A similar treatment is offered by Mackenzie and
Hannay (1982: 43ff) and Siewierska (1987: 147ff).
3
Connolly’s proposal has been made after Connolly (1983) and in a coherent way
with the distinction he draws between -purely syntactic- Od and Oi. Connolly’s revision of Dik seems to be based on the idea that placement rules and functional
patterns do not occur satisfactorily for free-order languages like Latin (Connolly
1991: 50).
4
We follow de Groot (1990: 189) as regards the difference between trigger (primary
and secondary) rules and placement rules. A rather different proposal for the form
38
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
As for the constituent X of functional patterns of the kind S-O-V-X, we
have already stressed its importance for diachronic explanation in Martín
Arista (forthcoming): given VN and X, X is the highlighted element in semantic, syntactic, pragmatic and phonological terms.1
And regarding markedness we suscribe to Dik (1989), Croft (1990) and
Givón (1995) the view that there is a correlation between structural
(qualitative) and statistical (quantitative) markedness. We also follow
Bossong (1989: 27ff) for the hierarchy of markedness.2
Given the evidence provided by the corpus, we propose, for LME, an assignment of unmarked pragmatic functions as follows: TOPum---P1 and
FOCum---PF. This assignment, which corresponds to DECL passive clauses,
will be tested against the different clause operators and all the possibilities of
constituent ordering. This proposal implies: (i) a displacement of FOCumbearing constituents towards the final position of the clause (with respect to
the description we have advanced for OE pragmatic function assignment in
Martín Arista (1995)); and (ii) a grammaticalization of TOP in clause-initial
position when TOP=S. This explanation, which suits the pragmatic-rule-first
principle that should govern a functional syntax, is coherent with the explanation for markedness shift that is generally accepted: Marked > Unmarked >
Grammaticalized.
Let us concentrate on the first place on syntactic continuity. In example
(2.a), we assign TOPum in clause-initial position and FOCum in clause-final
position. This pragmatic explanation is compatible with the data yielded by
the corpus, according to which examples like those under (2) are statistically
unmarked.
(2)
of placement rules (although it is also based on the description of syntactic templates put forward in Connolly (1983)) is found in Bakker (1990: 237).
1
This proposal is by no means new. Its contribution may lie in the matching of all
levels of linguistic description and in the functionalist methodology. We may refer
the reader, for instance, to Dik (1989: 345 ff). For an alternative view, see Lightfoot
(1991: 42 ff) and Denison (1993: 25 ff).
2
Bossong (1989: 27 ff) has dealt with the (morphemic) marking of TOP and FOC and
has drawn the conclusion that partial marking means that only TOP is marked
whereas total marking covers both TOP and FOC. For more detailed information,
see Gunkel et al. (1988: 285 ff) and Andrews (1990: 9 ff).
39
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
a. They schall wille pat it were destruyed (WS13)
b. He was condempned to be deuoured with feers bestis (CHB)
c. In depe preson he was commaundyde to Iy (CHB)
d. For avaryce maketh alwey mokereres to ben hated (CHB)
It is worth mentioning that all infinitive constructions, such as (2.b), (2.c)
and (2.d), in our corpus display syntactic continuity.
When dealing with marked constructions, it is necessary to resort to a
markedness hierarchy (Martín Arista 1995) that accounts, at least, for two
degrees of markedness, marked and heavily marked. We define this markedness hierarchy in the following way:
(3) Markedness Hierarchy
Heavily marked = TOPm+FOCm
Marked = TOPm+FOCum/TOPum+FOCm
Unmarked = TOPum+FOCum
Our point is that this hierarchy, is applicable to the constructions we are
commenting on. This is illustrated by example (4). We hold that the marked
character of these constructions, which the corpus proves to be statistically
marked, is due to the assignment of TOPm in interverbal position, FOCum
being aligned in clause-final position.
(4)
a. … in whiche is pis horn picchid (WS27)
b. pus was Steuene martirud (WS40)
c. pus, by monye resownys, was Crist clepud of Nazareth (WS42)
So clauses, both DECL like (5.a) and NEG like (5.b), offer the same pattern
as the examples in (4), thus constituting a sub-group with stable ordering, as
is evidenced by the following examples:
(5)
a. So is it byfallen that thou art a litil departed fro the pees of thi
thought (CHB)
b. So was not a ston left vpon anopur vndestruyed (WS19)
40
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
It should be noted that, in stating that these clauses are marked, we agree
with Connolly (1991: 150). We do not follow Connolly, however, as regards
the description of clauses that qualify as VF-S-VN in which XLoc is inserted
into P1 as unmarked. Our point is that XLoc---P1 constructions were unmarked in OE, as a result of TOPum---P1 and FOCum---P3, but that they are
marked in LME and ModE. It does not seem advisable to describe LME XLoc--P1 clauses as unmarked, given the statistical data drawn from the corpus
and the assignment of pragmatic functions in similar clauses in OE and
ModE.
To go on, we discuss relative order problems. We present two cases of
Vf-Vn order, of which (6.a) is a correlate of syntactic continuity and (6.b) of
syntactic discontinuity:
(6)
a. Monye myraclis weron byfallen abowte pe byrpe of pis Iohn
(WS51)
b. It is wel seyd pow mayst not see pis poynt of byleue (WS1)
We explain the order of (6.a) as a result of the assignment of TOPum---P1
and FOCum---P4, which reflects the unmarked character of the clause. In (6.b),
where Vf-Vn and syntactic discontinuity coexist, XMan breaks into the Vf-Vn
continuum. The marked character of (6.b) is not due to the Vf-Vn order, which
is unmarked, but to the assignment of FOCm--XMan in P3.
As regards the order Vn -Vf, such linearization is not marked when clause
operators other than DECL are involved. There follow two examples of OPT:
(7)
a. Blessud be men of clene herte, for pei schal se God (WS68)
b. Blessud be mercyful men, for pei schal suwe mercy pat schal be
comun to al pe Chirche (WS68)
Examples (7.a) and (7.b) are described as unmarked, which we explain in
terms of the assignment FOCum---P1 and TOPum---P3.
In the discussion of absolute order problems we see, in the first place, to
the effects of coordination. In example (8) the presence of Vf in P1 is brought
about by the coordinative structure in which the clause belongs:
41
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
(8) And is al maat and overcomen by wepynge and sorwe for desir of
the.
In example (8) S, which is assigned TOPm, causes discontinuity of Vf and
Vn, thus making the clause marked, FOCum is assigned to XReason in P5. A
similar explanation can be put forward in cases like the following:
(9) For yit ben ther thynges dwelled to the-ward that no man douteth
that they ne be more derworthe to the than thyn so owene lif
(CHB)
The instances of coordination of infinitives also qualify as V-initial
clauses:
(10)
a. Crist hap ordeyned hise preestis bope to teche and preche his
gospel, and not for to preye pus, and to be hyd in suche closettis
(WS14)
b. … and to ben helude of syknesse pat pei weron inne (WS14)
In examples (8)-(10) V-initial has shown up as Vf-initial. Vn -initial clauses
with clause operator OPT are not marked in LME, as we have remarked with
regard to example (7). Example (11) is an instance of marked order in an OPT
clause:
(11) Be he kyld of iuste men (WS5)
Since the clause operator involved here is OPT, we have regarded S in P2
as TOPm and XAg in P4 as FOCm, which accounts in a satisfactory way for
the highly marked character of this clause: it shows syntactic discontinuity of
the type Vf-S-Vn and Vf---P1. XAg, on the other hand, follows Vf, S and Vn,
which can be considered the straight order.
As for V2, Vf---P2 is the unmarked option, as the corpus evidences. We
explain the statistically unmarked character of (12) as a result of the assigment
TOPum---S in P1 and FOCum---XLoc in P4:
(12) Cresus was lad to the fyer to ben brend (CHB)
The following example also qualifies as V2, although what appears in P2 is
Vn:
(13) Ryght swich was sche whan sche flateryd the (CHB)
42
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
This clause is highly marked: XMan is placed in P1, followed by Vn in P2,
Vf in P3 and S in P4 (therefore, we have Vn -Vf and S-final). This is accounted
for as a consequence of the assignment TOPm---S in P4 and FOCm---XMan in
P1. The following example is also marked: we find Vn ---P2 in a Vn -Vf clause:
(14) Sai we pat he riuen es wit beistes wild (CHB)
We explain this ordering by resorting to the assignment FOCm---Vn.
Consequently, it is not necessary to explain the Vn -Vf order in terms of dependent/independent clauses, which seems out of place in LME.
As far as VF is concerned, VF is marked in P4 templates. This markedness
is coherent with the assigment of FOCm to XLoc, XTemp and XMan in P3, on
which we have already commented. Let us see an example:
(15) By sixe or sevene he shulde soone delyvered be (CHB)
The marked character of (15) is explained by means the presence of S in
P2, which is assigmed TOPm, and XAg in P1, which bears FOCm. Moreover,
Vf follows Vn in final position and XTemp follows AUX, which dis places
YTemp , Vn and Vf one position to the right.
The next example also qualifies as VF. It is Vn that comes in clause-final
position this time. The construction is also marked:
(16)
a. By pis foule eresye is pe Chirche disseyued (WS45)
b. In pis prefold disseit ben monye men blyndud (WS45)
c. By pis secounde lesyng is pe Chirche disseyued (WS45)
Indeed, a focalised XAg introduces the clause in (16.a), which undergoes
syntactic discontinuity of the type Vf-S-Vn; and S is assigned TOPm. The
same explanation can account for (16.b) and (16.c), in which FOCm is assigned to XLoc in (16.a) and XAg in (16.b). By stressing this we mean that Vn
(and less frequently Vf) in final position is not itself marked; on the contrary,
it is the result of the displacement caused by focalised and topicalised
constituents that push Vn (or Vf) towards the end of the clause. This statement also applies to dependent clauses. Otherwise, orderings like the one in
(17) would have to be explained in clause-dependency terms, which does not
seem advisable in the LME period:
(17)
43
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
a. … how pei weron specially doon (WS37)
b. … in whiche eche part of pis rewme is monye weyes contenyd
(WS11)
c. such a man louep more godus of pis world pan he louep his
God, for on hem his wylle is more set (WS22)
We put down the markedness of (17.a) to the assignment of FOCm to
XMan in P3; as a result, Vn is displaced towards P4. TOPum is assigned to S
in P1. A similar explanation can be provided for examples (17.b) and (17.c). In
(17.b) the presence of XLoc in P1 can be attributed to the fact that this is a
relative clause; Vn is displaced to P5 by YMan, which appears in P4; YMan
bears FOCm. In (17.c) all the constituents are displaced towards the right by
XLoc, which is topicalised and occupies P1, Man occupying interverbal position P4 and bearing FOCm.
In general, V2 equals Vf---P2 unless it is displaced by AUX:
(18)
a. Special knowyng schulde ben hyd (WS19)
b. Owre iugement schal ben hool (WS19)
c. pei schal be reprouede (WS20)
AUX displaces Vf, Vn and X towards the right of the clause. This is the
case with continuous and discontinuous passives, as the following examples
illustrate:
(19)
a. … that may ben talcen im any wise (CHB)
b. … for panne schal Cristus be reryd (WS12)
As is shown in (19.a), P2, which is occupied by AUX, is not vacant and
VF is placed in P3, VN in P4 and XMan in P5. The effect of AUX is similar in
the case of syntactic discontinuity, as is displayed in (19.b). In (19.b) we take
TOPum to have being assigned to XMan since this constituent is a pronoun,
which suggests second reference; and S to bear FOCm in interverbal
position. It should also be noted that by syntactic discontinuity we mean not
only that Vf and Vn but also that AUX and V are cut off by one or more constituents. In this sense, the example that follows is not marked with respect to
44
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
syntactic continuity but it does show markedness as regards S position,
which is clause-final:
(20) Whereuere his body were, schulden be gederude men (WS69)
It is worth noticing that the whole Loc clause is under focus in this utterance. Thus, FOCm is assigned to XLoc in P1 and TOPm to S in P5.
After revising the role of AUX in DECL clauses, let us discuss the role of
AUX in clauses with clause operator NEG. Again, we draw our attention to
syntactic continuity and discontinuity. In (21) NEG and AUX enter the clause
structure:
(21) Ne shal the corn in his berne ben eten wid no muis (CHB)
In (21), NEG occupies P1 and is assigned FOCum. As a result, AUX is
placed in P2 and S, which bears TOPum, in P3, which causes discontinuity in
the verbal complex; XAg follows Vf and Vn in P6. What follows from this
explanation is that the assignment of pragmatic functions in LME NEG passive clauses containing AUX is the same as in NEG OPT and NEG IMP, that
is, TOPum is assigned in P3 and FOCum in P1. This is tantamount to saying
that clauses like the following are still marked in LME:
(22)
a. … pat ne it schal be schewed panne (WS17)
b. … pat ne it schal be knowe panne (WS17)
Although both (22.a) and (22.b) are dependent clauses, we do not imply
that this order is the result of subordination. Drawing on Dik (1989: 353) and
Givón (1993 vol I: 207) we suggest that the evolution of NEG in terms of
markedness from LME to ModE might have been as follows:
(23)
a. LME NEG-AUX-S-Vf-Vn (unmarked)
NEG-S-AUX-Vf-Vn (marked)
S-AUX-NEG-Vf-VN (marked)
S-MOD-NEG-Vf-Vn (unmarked)
b. ModE S-MOD-NEG-Vf-Vn (grammaticalized)
The hypothesis tentatively presented in (23) has two advantages: in the
first place, it is statistically justified by the data extracted from our corpus;
45
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
and, in the second place, it is compatible with the evolution Marked-Unmarked-Grammaticalized on which we have already commented.
Let us turn to double NEG clauses now. As is well known, double negatives, either nominal-verbal or verbal-verbal, were a common device in LME.
Our figures indicate that double negatives were statistically marked in LME.
This explanation, however, could hardly resist diachronic comparison since
there is no point in arguing for an evolution Marked-Unmarked-Grammaticalized in double negatives, as these ModE examples evidence:
(24)
a. *He was not given nothing
b. *He not was not given anything
Neither does it seem sensible to state that the double negative was grammaticalized in LME clauses because, as a matter of fact, single negatives occurred more frequently than double negatives. The solution that we propose
is to consider NEG in P3 as a duplication of NEG in P1, thus taking up no
position in the clause and leaving vacant P3 for S. Let us see an example:
(25) Ne wol noght ben cast thow with the lowde blastes of the wynd
Eurus (CHB)
In (25) we speak of markedness not because of the presence of double
NEG but because of the assignment of TOPm to S, which is placed in P5.
3. CONCLUDING REMARKS
In this article we have formulated a number of placement rules that satisfy
the requirements of -at least- LME passive clauses:
(26) Given P1-P4 and DECL or NEG
TOPum---P1
FOCum---P4
Given P1-P4 and OPT, NEG OPT, IMP or NEG IMP
TOPum---P3
FOCum---P1
46
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
Given P1-P4 and OP INT
TOPum---P2
FOCum---P1
Very briefly, what this proposal argues for is a grammaticalization of TOP
in clause-initial position when TOP=S and a displacement of the constituents
bearing FOCum towards clause-final position.
There remains to demonstrate that these rules can explain the order of active clauses in an adequate way. Our position on this respect is that they can
since active clauses exhibit a lower degree of syntactic complexity in the
sense that syntactic discontinuity is not a frequent phenomenon in active
clauses.
Apart from their applicability, these rules have the advantage of being
consistent with the basic tenet of a functionally-oriented syntax: syntactic
rules must be based on external, i.e. non-syntactic, factors such as the as signment of semantic and pragmatic functions.
Javier Martín Arista
Universidad de La Rioja
REFERENCES
Andrews, E. 1990: Markedness Theory. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bakker, D. 1990: A formalism for Functional Grammar expression rules. >
Connolly & Dik eds.: 45-63.
Bolkenstein, A. M. 1985: Cohesiveness and syntactic variation: Quantitative
vs. qualitative grammar. > Bolkestein et al. eds.: 1-14.
Bolkenstein, A. M. 1987: Discourse functions of predications: The background/foreground distinction of tense and voice in Latin main and
subordinate clauses. > Nuyts & Schutter eds.: 163-178.
Bolkenstein, A. M., Vet, C. & Hannay, M. eds. 1985: Syntax and Pragmatics
in Functional Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris.
47
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
Bossong, G. 1989: Morphemic marking of topic and focus. Belgian Journal of
Linguistics 4: 27-51.
Connolly, J. 1983: Placement Rules & Syntatic Templates. > Dik: 247- 266.
Connolly, J. 1991: Constituent order in Functional Grammar: Synchronic
and diachronic perspectives. Berlin: Foris.
Connolly, J. & Dik, S. eds. 1990: Functional Grammar and the Computer.
Dordrecht: Foris.
Conte, M. et al. eds. 1978: Wortstellung & Bedeutung. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Croft, W. 1990: Typology and Universals. Cambridge University Press.
Cruttenden, A. 1986: Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Denison, D. 1993: English Historical Syntax. London: Longman.
Dezsó, L. 1978: Towards a Typology of Theme and Rheme: SOV Languages.
> Conte et al. eds.: 3-11.
Dik, S. 1978: Functional Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris.
Dik, S. 1989: The Theory of Functional Grammar I: The Structure of the
Clause. Dordrecht: Foris.
Dik, S. et al. 1981: On the Typology of Focus Phenomena. > Hoekstra et al.
eds.: 41-74.
Dik, S. ed. 1983: Advances in Functional Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris.
Givón, T. 1984/1990: Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction (2
vols.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Givón, T. 1993: English Grammar: A Function-Based Introduction (2 vols.).
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Givón, T. 1995: Functionalism and Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Givón, T. ed. 1983: Topic Continuity in Discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Groot, C. de 1990: Morphology and the typology of expression rules. > Hannay & Vester eds.: 187-201.
48
External control in functional syntax: LME constituent order rules
____________________________________________________________________
Gunkel, J. et al. 1988: On the functions of marked and unmarked terms. >
Hammond et al. eds.: 285-301.
Halliday, M. 1985: An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
Hammond, M. et al. eds. 1988: Studies in Syntactic Typology. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Hannay, M. 1990: Pragmatic function assignment and word order variation in
a Functional Grammar of English. Working Papers in Functional
Grammar 38. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.
Hannay, M. & Vester, E. eds. 1990: Working with Functional Grammar: Descriptive and Computational Applications. Dordrecht: Foris.
Harris, A. & Campbell, L. 1995: Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hoekstra, T. et al. eds. 1981: Perspectives on Functional Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris.
Hopper, P. & Traugott, E. C. 1993: Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP.
Jong, J. DE. 1981: On the Treatment of Focus Phenomena in Functional
Grammar. > Hoekstra et al. eds.: 89-115.
Kuno, S. 1980: Functional Syntax. > Moravcsik & Wirth eds.: 117-135.
Lightfoot, D. 1991: How to Set Parameters. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Mackenzie, J. & Keizer, E. 1991: On assigning pragmatic functions in English.
Pragmatics 1: 169-215.
Mackenzie, J. & Hannay, M. 1982: Prepositional predicates and focus constructions in a functional grammar of English. Lingua 56: 43-57.
Martín Arista, J. 1994a: Funciones pragmáticas marcadas y no marcadas.
Miscelanea 15: 391-404.
Martín Arista, J. 1994b: Aspectos semánticos y pragmáticos de la operación
de las reglas de expresión. > Martín Arista ed.: 193-238.
Martín Arista, J. 1995: The prefield-postfield drift and the evolution of the
English passive. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 30-31.
49
Javier Martín Arista
____________________________________________________________________
Martín Arista, J.(forthcoming): The role of VN in functional syntax.
Martín Arista, J. ed. 1994: Estudios de Gramática Funcional. Zaragoza: Mira
Eds.
Moravcsik, E. & Wirth, J. eds. 1980: Syntax and Semantics 13: Current
AVnroaches to Syntax. New York: Academic Press.
Navarro Errasti, M. P. et al. 1991: Setting up a Presence-and-Permanence
Glossary of Native and Non-Native Terms in Medieval English I. Universidad de Zaragoza: Servicio de Publicaciones.
Nuyts, J. & Schutter, G. DE. eds. 1987: Getting One’s Words into Line. Dordrecht: Foris.
Siewierska, A. 1987: Postverbal Subject pronouns in Polish in the light of
topic continuity and the Topic/Focus distinction. > Nuyts & Schutter
eds.: 147-162.
Visser, F. 1984 (1963/1973): A Historical Syntax of the English Language (4
vols.). Leiden: Brill.
*†*
50
ON THE LINGUISTIC STATUS OF MEDIEVAL COPIES
AND TRANSLATIONS OF OLD ENGLISH
DOCUMENTARY TEXTS
1. ORIENTATION
The future Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English (LAEME) will for
the first time provide a full survey of linguistic variation in Early Middle Englis h texts written between 1150 and 1300. Differences between this project
and the previous Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME) are
many, and derive mostly from the scarcity of written material from the early
period arrived to us.
Laing (1993: 2-6) proposes the following classification of the bulk of
surviving texts from this period:
1. Documentary texts:
(a) copied Old English documents
(b) post-Conquest documents
2. Literary texts:
(a) copied Old English literary texts
(b) Early Middle Englis h literary texts
3. Glosses
As can be seen, texts originated in the Old English period have acquired a
central role for the compilation of LAEME. In this paper, I am proposing an
analysis of a group of copied Old English documents that intends to account
Javier Díaz Vera, Selim 6 (1998): 51—63
Javier Díaz Vera
____________________________________________________________________
for the principles underlying their inclusion as dialect informants in a largescale survey on early Middle English.
52
On the linguistic status of Medieval copies and translations of OE
____________________________________________________________________
2. A NCHOR TEXTS IN EARLY AND LATE M IDDLE ENGLISH
Since the publication in 1986 of LALME, documentary texts of known date
and local origin (such as charters, writs and grants) have become a central
source for the study of linguistic variation in Middle English. These documents constitute the basis for the creation of a dialectal matrix into which
many other texts of unknown origins are progressively incorporated. The impressive number of vernacular “anchor” texts written in England between
1350 and 1500 allowed the compilators of LALME to create a complex and
reliable network of issogloses that are the previous step for the precise localisation of the mass of literary texts.
However, the situation becomes much more complex when turning to
early Middle English. The Norman Conquest of England meant an abrupt
disruption in the use of written English, that was almost completely replaced
by Latin and French (Southern 1973: 2). For this reason, the number of PostConquest documents is too low to provide a similar network of localised material, that would eventually permit the localization on linguistic grounds of
other early Middle English literary manuscripts and the compilation of the
future LAEME.
According to Pelteret (1990), while documents in the vernacular continued
to be produced in England between the Norman Conquest and the end of the
reign of Henry II (with a total of 148 surviving texts, most of which do not
show significant degrees of linguistic variation in relation to documents from
the Anglo-Saxon period), only a few original documents were drawn up in the
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.1 In this situation, it is obvious that
the developing of a network of isoglosses that permits the localization of the
bulk of early Middle English texts requires the utilization of other types of
manuscripts.
In a recent paper preliminary to the compilation of LAEME, Laing (1991)
has suggested that both literary texts in early Middle English localized on
extra-linguistic grounds (such as Ormulum, Layamon, or the Corpus version
of Ancrene Wisse) and medieval copies and translations of Old English doc1
Laing (1993) lists a total of 20 different manuscripts with original documents in
Early Middle English written during this period.
53
Javier Díaz Vera
____________________________________________________________________
uments of known origins should be included into the category of “anchor”
texts, in order to allow the “placing” of the remaining linguistic profiles.
Anacronistic as it may sound, the idea of copies of Old English texts being treated as a basic source of information of dialectal diversity in the early
Middle English period represents one of the most solid methodological principles the LAEME project lies on. The numerical predominance of these documents as respects other types of anchor texts is too obvious to deny them a
major role in a research of these characteristics. For this reason, a deeper insight into the linguistic profiles represented by copies of Old English documents is needed, that will account for their different levels of modernization
and their linguistic relation to contemporary early Middle English texts.
3. CHRONOLOGICAL AND DIALECTAL VARIATION IN COPIED OLD
ENGLISH DOCUMENTS
The corpus chosen for this research consists of the following seven
copies of Anglo-Saxon writs made in the South West Midlands between the
middle of the 11th century and the beginning 15th century (Harmer 1952;
Sawyer 1968):
1. London, British Library, Additional Charter 19802 (Wo C11b1).
2. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 392 (Gl C13a2).
3. Glocestershire Record Office, D 4431 (Gl C13b2).
4. Worcester, Herefordshire and Worcestershire Record Office,
BA 3814 (Wo C13b2-C14a1).
5. Herefordshire, Diocesan Registry, Registrum Ricardi de Swinfield (He C14a1).
6. London, Public Record Office, C 53, Charter Rolls, 6 Edward II,
nº 27 (Wo C14a1).
7. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Rawlison B. 329, f. 104 (He
C15a1).
One of the most important advantages inherent to the study of this type
of legal documents lies on the striking parallelism among all the documents
included in the corpus, which allows a detailed comparisons of the whole ma-
54
On the linguistic status of Medieval copies and translations of OE
____________________________________________________________________
terial. Further, since the original documents were written in late West Saxon,
patterns of linguistic innovation can be easily detected. The following paragraphs extracted from our seven documents respond to the prototypical
opening found in most Anglo-Saxon writs. As can be seen here, words and
structures are systematically repeated in all of them:
A. 1. Eadward kyning gret Harold eorl & Ælfgar eorl
2. Edward king gret mine bissopes and mine eorles (…)
3. [lacking]
4. Edward king gret Alfgar herl. & Richard.
5. Edward kynge gret Eldred Erchebissop and Begard Bíssop and
Harald eorl
6. + Eadward cyng gret Wulfstan Í. & Ælfgar eorl. & Ricard minne
huscarll
7. Edward kyng gret Alfred Eurl. and Harald Eurl.
B. 1. & ealle pa Íegnas on Wigeraceastrescire (…) freondlice.
2. & alle mine peigenes (…) freondliche.
3. [?W]ytey alle myn yenes
4. & alle myne peynes on Wyrcestrechyre. wythynne porte &
bouten frendlyche.
5. and alle myne peynes of Herefordshíre and of Saloppshíre
6. & ealle mine pegnas. on Wigrecestrescire freondlice.
7. and all his undurlynges in Herefordshire ffrendelich.
The Anglo-Saxon double graphs <ea> and <eo> are maintained exclusively in texts 1 and 6, while copies made from a less conservative perspective (such as text s 3, 4, 5 and 7) present <a> and <e> in their place. Text 2
represents an intermediate stage: the copyist maintains Anglo-Saxon <eo> in
the words eorles and freondliche, but prefers to substitute it for <a> in the
form alle. Graphs <i> and <y> are interchangable in texts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, but
their use corresponds to the orthographical rules of late West Saxon in texts 1
and 6. Moreover the graph <g> of the word OE pegen, which is found in texts
1, 2 and 6, has been substituted in texts 3, 4 and 7 by <y>.
55
Javier Díaz Vera
____________________________________________________________________
Finally, the consonant <ch> is used in less conservative texts for the adverbial suffix -lic (which maintains its Anglo-Saxon orthography in literatim
copies). This same graph is sporadically used in text 4 for OE sc
(Wyrcestrechyre, l. 2), that appears as <ss> in 2 (bissopes l. 1, also found in
text 5, l. 4). Our analysis can be now completed by comparing the central and
final paragraphs of these seven documents:
A. 1. & ic cyÍe eow p ic habbe geunnen Wulfstane munuce p. .b.
2. & ic cupe eow p ic wolle p
3. pat ich Alfred King habbe hy i¥une Stening Mine goude mete
hom
4. & ich quype ou pat hy chulle pat Wolfstan (…)
5. and ich coupe ow pat ich habbe ¥euen
6. & ic cyÍe eow & ic habbe geumen Alfstane munece p
7. And I do yowe to understonden that I woll that the Prestes in
Hereford
B. 1. rice into Wihgeraceastre mid sace & mid socne toll
2. he beo his saca wurÍ. & his socnes. ofer his lond & ofer his
men. & tolnes wrth.
3. to seinte Trinitote of Fescampe
4. wyrpe on semtolne & of chyptolne into Seynte Marie munstre
5. Seynte Marie moder Crístes munstres (…) pat hoe boe on hore
sake worpe and hore sokene of hore lond
6. he beo his sace weorde & his socne. & tolles & teames ofer his
land & ofer his menn
7. (…) that they haue euere Soke and Sake ouere alle heore men
and alle
C. 1. & team binan burhge & butan swa full & forÍ swa hit ænig his
foregenga fyrmæst (…) on eallan 1ingan misbeode.
2. (…) swa full & swa forÍ. swa ænig his forgengena toforen him
formest weren on Cnutes kinges daie.
3. al so fair and al so goud so he me an and stod.
56
On the linguistic status of Medieval copies and translations of OE
____________________________________________________________________
4. so ful & so forph so he haued pat oper ping.
5. (…) bynne burch and wít outentolles (…) and ich nulle ¥e
pawyen pat enyman pys abreke by myne froshype.
6. binnan porte & buton. & ic nelle gepafian & him ænig man ænig
unlage beode.
7. heore londes withynne bourgh and wt oute so full and so forth
so they formest hadde ynne alle thynges.
As can be seen here, while the graph <p> is used in texts 1-6 with great
regularity, <Í> is found only sporadically. Similarly graphs <æ>, <ea> and
<eo> are more frequent in texts 1 and 6. Moreover, these two texts have retained the Old English nominal and verbal morphemes from their originals,
which definitely discards them as dialectal informants.
Texts 2, 3, 4 and 5 are much more interesting from a diachronic perspective. A compromise between conservative and innovative forms is present in
these copies, which, in spite of their archaistic appearance, show clear signs
of linguistic modernization with the apparent scope of making them understandable to contemporary readers.
Further, these four copies represent two different levels of orthographic
innovation, that can be accounted for on chronological and scribal arguments; discrepancies between them affect the graphs <a> (for OE aµ), <c>
(for OE c=), intervocalic <f> and the personal pronoun, that display the
following distribution:
(a) OE aµ is maintained as <a> in text 2 (swa l. 8, 9), but appears as
<o> in texts 3 and 4 (so l. 5).
(b) In text 2, OE c= appears as <c> in final position (ic l. 4), but is
substituted by <ch> when intermediate (freondliche l. 4, muchell l.
9); the copyists of texts 4 and 5 use <ch> throughout (ich l. 3,
frendlyche l. 3, chyptolne l. 4).
(c) OE f in intervocalic position is maintained in text 2 (ofer l. 5), and
substituted by <u> in text 4 (haued l. 5).
(d) OE eow is written eow in text 2; texts 4 and 5 present the modernized forms ou and ow in its place.
57
Javier Díaz Vera
____________________________________________________________________
Moreover, texts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 (which is the latest and the most modernized version) share the following series of linguistic innovations, for which a
dialectal origin can be claimed:
(a) Generalized use of the graph <o> before nasal consonants.
(b) Confusion in the use of <i> and <y>.
(c) Use of the form alle for late West Saxon ealle.
(d) Ellimination of nominal morphemes, with the only exception of es, that is used for the sg. gen. and for the plural.
(e) Maintainance of h-forms for the 3rd person plural of the personal
pronoum (except in text 7).
In order to represent all these linguistic data the following questionnaire
has been deviced, that intends to reflex the different levels of conservatism
detected in these copies:
Txt 1
Txt 2
Txt 3
Txt 4
Txt 5
Txt 6
Txt 7
OE Í/p
Í/p
p (Í)
p/y
p (th)
p (th)
Í/p
th
OE æ
æ
æ
a(æ)
e
a
æ
e
OE a+n
a
o
o
o
o(a)
a
o
OE aµ
a
a
a
o
o/a
a(o)
a/o
OE i/y
i/y
i, y/u
i, y/u
i, y/u
i, y/u
-
i,y/u
OE ea
ea
ea
a
a
a/e
ea
a
OE eo
eo
eo
-
e
o (eo)
eo
e (eo)
OE VfV
f
f/u
-
-
u
-
u
OE g=
g
g
y
y
3
g
y
OE c=
c
c/ch
-
ch
ch
c
-
OE sc=
sc
ss
sc
ch
sh/ss
sc
sh
ALL
ealle
alle
alle
alle
alle
-
all
ou
ow
-
youwe
ealle
YOU
eow
eow
-
THEY
-
-
he
hy
hoe
-
they
THEM
-
-
hom
-
-
-
hem
58
On the linguistic status of Medieval copies and translations of OE
____________________________________________________________________
From the questionnaire, it becomes clear that the seven documents described here represent three different approaches to the copying of Old English texts, which we will refer to as literatim-copy (i.e. copies with prevailing
West Saxon forms, as texts 1 and 6), modified Old English (copies where a
significative number of West Saxon forms has been maintained, as in texts 2
and 3) and diachronical translation (copies thoroughly modernized, as in texts
4, 5 and 7). These categories correspond roughly to three different scribal
attitudes towards Old English texts, based on the scope of the linguis tic
innovations introduced by the copyists (Díaz 1994: 459-465).
4. ORTHOGRAPHIC TRADITION IN EARLY M IDDLE ENGLISH LITERARY
ANCHOR-TEXTS
According to the methodology adopted for the compilation of LAEME,
the data extracted from copied Old English documents are to be combined
with the linguistic profiles corresponding to literary texts in Early Middle
English localised on extralinguistic grounds, in order to get a complex of
isogloses complete enough as to permit the progressive placing of the remaining manuscripts. In the case of the South West Midlands, the number of
literary texts confidently localized is relatively high, and includes the following manuscripts:
1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 402 (Wigmore, He C13a2):
Ancrene Wisse.
2. London, British Library, Harley 2253 (Leominster, He C14a2): prose
and verse in Latin, French and English.
3. London, British Library, Harley 3376 (Worcester, Wo C13): verse
piece attributed to the “tremulous hand”.
4. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 34 (SC 1883) (Leodbury, Godstow
and Much Cowarne, He C13a1): Saints’ lives of the Katherinegroup.
59
Javier Díaz Vera
____________________________________________________________________
5. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 86 (Redmarley d’Abitot, Gl C13b2):
22 EME poems.
6. Oxford, Corpus Christi College 59 (Llanthony Priory, Gl C13b2): 3
EME poems.
In order to determine the linguistic relations between both groups of texts,
the previous questionnaire has been applied to these six texts with the
following results:
MS 1
MS 2
MS 3
MS 4
MS 5
MS 6
OE Í/p
p, Í
p (Í)
th
p, Í
_
p (Í)
OE æ
e ((eo))
e
e
e
((eo))
e
e
OE a+n
o
o
o
o
o
o
OE aµ
o ((a))
o
o
a
o
o
OE y
u
u
u
u ((e))
u ((e))
u
OE ea
ea ((a))
e
e
ea
e
e
OE eo
eo
e
eo
eo
e
e
OE VfV
u
u
u
u
u
u
OE g=
¥
¥
g
¥
¥
¥
OE c=
ch
ch
ch
ch
ch
ch
OE sc=
sch
sh
sch
sch
sh, s
-
ALL
all / (eall)
alle
all
al
-
-
YOU
ow
ou
-
ow
-
-
THEY
hi
hue
thei
hi
hy, hoe
-
(pey)
THEM
ham
hem
-
ham
hem
-
A brief comparison between these two groups of profiles shows that most
of the typically Anglo-Saxon orthographic conventions maintained in literatim-copies of Old English documents (i.e. texts 1 and 6) are avoided by
copyists working on literary early Middle English texts. Text 3, which was
60
On the linguistic status of Medieval copies and translations of OE
____________________________________________________________________
probably written at the beginning of the 13th century, shows some significative coincidences with literatim-copies, such as the use of the graphs <eo>
and <g> (for OE g=). Moreover, in the cases of CCCC 402 (MS A of Ancrene
Wisse) and Bodley 34 (Katherine-group) a relation can be established between these two groups of texts based on the use of the double graphs <ea>
and <eo> and the partial maintainance of the distinction between Í and p.
Other conservative graphs in these two manuscripts are the sporadic use of
<a> for Old English aµ and the appearance of the form ealle.
In spite of the presence of these archaistic features, the number of linguis tic innovations in these two texts is far from scarce. The combination of conservative and innovative graphemes in CCCC 402 and Bodley 34, as represented by the homogeneus variant of early Middle English traditionally refered to as ‘AB-language’, has been recently stressed by Smith (1992: 586).
Innovations (a)-(d) are exclusive to these two manuscripts, while (e)-(h) can
be found in the six texts studied here:
(a) Use of <e> and sporadic <ea> for OE æ; the use of <ea> in these
words is to be attributed to Mercian influence (Smith 1991: 54),
while <e> (which also appears in most South-West-Midlands texts)
reflects the regional development of West Germanic a (Díaz
forthcoming).
(b) Sporadic use of <e> for OE y (only in Bodley 34).
(c) Use of <sch> for OE sc.
(d) Use of the pronominal forms ow, hi and ham.
(e) Generalization of pre-nasal <o>.
(f) Use of <u> for OE y.
(g) Use of the graphs <¥> and <ch> for OE g= and c=.
(h) al- forms are used for OE ealle.
Other innovations exclusive to non-AB texts are the use of <o> for OE aµ
and <e> for both OE ea and eo. Although most of these features have been
detected in modernized versions of Old English texts (i.e. texts in modified Old
English and translations into Middle English), their use in these texts is far
from general, with the old forms frequently predominating over the new ones.
61
Javier Díaz Vera
____________________________________________________________________
5. CONCLUSIONS
From this discussion, it becomes obvious that the deep differences between both types of linguistic material would make of this combination of
data under the generic category of anchor texts an extremely controversial
task. On the one hand, copied Old English documents represent different levels of linguistic archaism, while Middle English literary texts witness a slow
but continuous separation from the Anglo-Saxon orthographical traditions.
On the other, all the texts included in the second group were written between
c1210 and c1325 (which roughly corresponds to the period traditionally referred to as early Middle English), while copied Old English documents span
the period between c1050 and c1425 (i.e. from late Old English until Late
Middle English). For these two reasons it seems clear that while literary anchor-texts can be confidently taken as representative of the linguistic habits
of the 13th and 14th centuries, copied Old English texts act rather as markers
of the numerous processes of orthographical maintainance occurring during
this period.
However, the fact that the few early Middle English literary texts geographically localized offer first-class evidence of the state of the language
during this period can not account for the neglect of copied Old English texts
as dialectal informants. Copies of Anglo-Saxons charters and writs witness
more confidently than any other type of material the language used during
the period immediately after the Norman Conquest. As markers of the transition between late Old and early Middle English, most of them include information on the dialectal reality of both periods and, what is more important,
about the traditional orthographies of Anglo-Saxon monasteries, offering
thus a solid starting-point for the creation of a dialectal matrix that will serve
as a basis for the study of diatopic variation in Old and early Middle English
and, eventually, for the compilation of the future LAEME.
Javier E. Díaz Vera
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
62
On the linguistic status of Medieval copies and translations of OE
____________________________________________________________________
REFERENCES
Díaz, J. E. 1994: Cambio lingüístico y tradición ortográfica en inglés medio
temprano: 1050-1350. Diss. Ph.D.; Universidad Complutense de
Madrid.
Díaz, J. E. forthcoming: From Domesday Book to Lay Subsidy Rolls: Placenames as informants of linguistic change. Studia Anglica Posnasiensa
30.
Harmer, F. E. 1952: The Ward Bequest: Anglo-Saxon Writs. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Ker, Neil Ripley 1957: Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon.
Oxford: OUP.
Laing, Margaret 1991: Anchor texts and literary manuscripts in early Middle
English. Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts. Ed.
Felicity Riddy. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. 27-52.
Laing, Margaret 1993: Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early
Medieval English. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer Ltd.
McIntosh, A., M. L. Samuels & M. Benskin. 1986: A Linguistic Atlas of Late
Mediaeval English. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.
Pelteret, D. A. E. Catalogue of post-Conquest Vernacular Documents.
Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer Ltd.
Sawyer, P. H. 1968: Anglo-Saxon Charters: an annotated list and bibliogra phy. London: Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks.
Smith, J. 1991: Tradition and innovation in South-West-Midland Middle English. Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts. Ed. Felicity Riddy. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. 53-66.
Smith, J. 1992: A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English: tradition and typology. History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in
Historical Linguistics. Ed. Matti Rissanen et al. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter. 582-591.
63
Javier Díaz Vera
____________________________________________________________________
Southern, R. W. 1973: The Sense of the Past. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society XXIII.
*†*
64
STEREOTYPED COMPARISONS
IN THE LANGUAGE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER
1. INTRODUCTION
The works of Geoffrey Chaucer exhibit the frequent appearance of structures like as stille as any ston, as swyft as thought or as white as chalk and,
on the grounds of the unexpectedly large corpus gathered from his writings
(of more than four hundred examples 1), we considered it to be of great interest
to devote our attention to study them.
Kerkhof (1982: 376-89) outlines some cases of stereotyped comparisons in
Chaucer and it was precisely from his suggestions that the idea for this article
arose. Therefore, this paper will deal with the so-called stereotyped
comparisons2, that is, highly hyperbolic comparisons with a chiefly colloquial
origin, fossilized and lexicalized in a language owing to their repeated use in a
given linguistic community.
These comparative structures show an intrinsic relationship between the
adjective and the noun acting as the second member of the comparison in the
sense that, owing to their fossilized status, the appearance of the former requires the presence of the latter and vice versa.
The continuous occurrence of these stereotypes may demonstrate that
many of them might have been already fossilized in the Middle English period. Actually, they were very appealing to the poet, who decided to include
them in his poetry as well as in his prose. In fact, Chaucer realized that this
1
2
The task of compiling was also eased by the recent edition of Chaucer’s works on
CD-ROM. Chaucer: Life and Times. 1995: Primary Source Media Limited.
These structures can also be labelled using various terminology. Gutierrez Diez
prefers to name them fossilized similes, González Calvo intensive comparisons,
Beinhauer lexicalized comparisons and hyperbolic expressions. However, we agree
with Mayoral’s terminology namely stereotyped comparisons, the term which we
will be using in the course of the paper.
Javier Calle Martín, Selim 6 (1998): 64—84
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
type of comparison transmitted comic tinges to his writings, humour could be
subtly included, and that provided him with a skilful and effective way to secure the constant interest and attention of his audience.
- Thou comest hoom as dronken as a mous1. WBT, 246.
- And Seint Jerome, whan he longe tyme hadde woned in desert,
where as he hadde no compaignye but of wilde beestes, […] for
which his flessh was blak as an Ethiopeen for heete, and ny destroyed for coold, […]. ParsT, 344.
- Hir mouth was sweete as bragot or the meeth,
Or hoord of apples leyd in hey or heeth. MilT, 3261-62.
Thus, in this paper2 we intend (1) to trace the origin of stereotyped comparisons; (2) to carry out a syntactic analysis; and finally (3) to analyse those
elements forming the second member of the comparison.
2. ORIGIN
With regard to their origin, stereotyped structures were not new in the
Middle Ages. Chaucer came about these types of combinations through various sources, most of them adapted from Old English, Latin, French or Italian,
that is, from the languages that the poet learned in his lifetime. Chaucer’s biographers (Dillon 1993: 1-24) suppose that in his youth the poet attended one
of the three schools surrounding the river Thames, where he had the possibility of getting acquainted with classical languages and their literature, and
this fact could have helped him to come across these kind of comparative
structures that he used later as calques or loan translations.
- Quid magis est saxo durum?. Ovid. Ars Amandi, 473.
1
The Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry D. Benson. 3rd edition. Oxford: OUP,
1991. All the following quotations are from the same edition of The Riverside
Chaucer.
2
The examples quoted constitute a brief summary of a major corpus drawn from the
complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer, and this corpus has been the primary source
of information for the data included.
66
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
- Som tyrant is, as ther be many oon,
That hath herte as hard as any stoon. Chaucer, MerT, 989-90.
- Et iacebat immobilis et nihil aliud quam dormiens cadaver. Apuley, Asinus Aureus, Vi, 21.
- Yet Troilus for al this no word seyde,
But longe he ley as stylle as he ded were. Chaucer, Tr, I, 722-23.
After this initial learning period, he was given a position of great responsibility in the court. In fact, the post of ambassador affected his literary career
by getting in contact with the literary movements of the continent and,
particularly, with these comparisons which offered him a wide range of possibilities to be used in his own language. Accordingly, we have carried out a
research of European medieval writings to prove the influence of these languages and we have been able to verify how, even though he was a poet of
unlimited genius, he was also directly influenced by the stereotypes from the
continent, as can be seen in the following examples.
- Blanche comme fleur de liz. de Lorris, Le Roman de la Rose (RR),
1028.
- His nayles whitter than the lylye flour. Chaucer, NPT, 2863.
- Pur ço Francs si fiers come leuns. La Chanson de Roland, 1888.
- Whan he hym knew, and hadde his tale herd,
As fiers as leon pulled out his swerd. Chaucer, KnT, 1597-98.
- Poi, procedendo di mio sguardo il curro,
vidine un’ altra come sangue rossa,
mostrando un’ oca bianca piú che burro. Dante, La Divina Commedia, Inferno, 17, 61-63.
- Wel loved he garleek, oynons, and eek lekes,
And for to drynken strong wyn, reed as blood;. Chaucer, GP, 63435.
The parallelism and analogy amongst the stereotypes of these medieval
languages is obviously non-casual and this coincidence leads us to suppose
that some of them have a traditional character and have managed to filter
67
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
through into European folklore to be spread afterwards into all the languages
by means of literature. If we attempt to trace their origin, we come to the
conclusion that they are to be found in classical literature.
However, along with these adaptations from European folklore, many examples of our corpus show a distinctive and unique character in each language whose origin has to be found in colloquial language and which always
responds to the speaker’s point of view (Beinhauer 1968: 257-58). That is,
apart from the task of imitating those models from the past, the internal
mechanism of each language will allow its users to invent and devise its own
stereotypes, projecting its own culture and, in these cases, the process of
fossilization and lexicalization will be influenced by the political, economical
or social situation of the moment. Thus, the first of the examples below shows
a stereotype, fossilized owing to a specific geographical feature of France
(the river Loire) whereas the second one can only be contextualized in an
English environment.
- La reconnait trop sombre et trop profonde et d’un courant plus
rapide que courant de Loire. Chrétien de Troyes, Perceval, p.58.
- […] Hadde alwey bawdes redy to his hond,
As any hawk to lure in Engelond. Chaucer, FrT, 1339-40.
Therefore, the process of invention in each language becomes clearer when
analysing specific adjectives, like green.
- […] aussi vert comme une cive. de Lorris, RR, 200.
- Ful fade and caytif was she eek,
And also grene as ony leek. RR, 211-12.
- Myn herte and alle my limes been as grene
As laurer thurgh the yeer is for to sene. MerT, 1465-66.
Whereas de Lorris uses the word cive (‘spring onion’), Chaucer prefers
leek and laurer. This duality may be explained by the differences found in
the products of each country. The inexistence of a one-to-one relationship
between the adjective and the second term can be obviously explained by the
specific diversity found in the production of each country (cf. nowadays the
Spanish stereotyped comparison más colorado que un tomate and its
English counterpart as red as a beetroot). Thus, every language shows a
68
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
natural tendency to develop its own stereotyped comparison and Chaucer
was clearly conscious of this fact when translating from French.
- Et si n’ot pas n’ed Orlenoiz. de Lorris, RR, 1217.
- Hir nose was wrought at point of devys. Chaucer, RR, 1215.
- Moult clere stoit aussi froide comme puiz ou comme fontaine. de
Lorris, RR, 110.
- Cleer was the water, and as cold
As any welle is, soth to seyne […]. Chaucer, RR, 116-17.
In the first example above, Chaucer omits the French reference to the
Orléans whereas in the other he prefers the anglosaxon word well to the
French term fo(u)ntain because perhaps that stereotype with the second term
well was already lexicalized and fossilized in his own language. Thus, the
poet in his translation of de Lorris’s Le Roman de la Rose makes all the
changes necessary to avoid the possible ambiguity that the original text
could cause. As Hatim (1990: 223) points out, “the translator has not only a
bilingual ability but also a bi-cultural vision. Translators mediate between cultures […] seeking to overcome those incompatibilities which stand in the way
of transfer of meaning”1.
All in all, once we have mentioned the two possible origins (classical and
colloquial), we should notice that Chaucer makes far greater use of the second. These stereotyped comparisons of colloquial origin are always under a
process of continual movement of lexicalization and new stereotypes are
constantly being fossilized in every language. Therefore, it must be clear that
the catalogue available for these stereotypes should be richer than those inherited from tradition2.
1
2
Chaucer tends to adapt his translations to his English audience in order to make
them more comprehensible, otherwise most of his verses would have been ambiguous for his audience. Let us mention A. Bensoussan’s recent translation of R.
Redoli’s brilliant Chisnetos ("La Beata Aquejada de Picores") in which the French
professor opts to translate the Spanish name ‘Encarna’ into French as
‘Conception’, conveying thus the same connotations that the Spanish term contains
(Cf. his conference held at the University of Málaga on March 12th under the title
of "La Traducción Lúdica").
Notice that stereotypes nowadays may be spread even quicker than in the Middle
Ages owing to the powerful influence of the mass media. Therefore, the catalogue of
examples compiled from present-day English requires a constant attention and
compilation to have it up-to-date (Calle and Miranda 1997).
69
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
3. SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS
3.1. PATTERNS
The syntactic analysis of these stereotyped structures reveals the
different patterns that the constituents exhibit in the sentence structure.
Chaucer does not always use the same syntactic structure and, depending on
the verse he is writing, he uses what we are going to label regular order, on
the one hand, and complex order, on the other. In a regular order the
adjective1 is sorrounded by both members of the comparison (first and
second term) and, therefore, it responds to the following structure.
FIRST TERM
COMP-ELEMENT
SECOND TERM
Noun
as … as/so … as/also … as
Noun
-er than/more … than
- And Jason is as coy as is a mayde; […]. LGW, 1548.
- Five arowis were of other gise,
That ben ful foule to devyse,
For shaft and ende, soth for to telle,
Were also blak as fend in helle. RR, 971-74.
- His coomb was redder than the fyn coral,
And batailled as it were a castel wal. NPT, 2859-60.
- For present tyme abidith nought;
It is more swift than any thought. RR, 5023-24.
This regular pattern is more abundant in Chaucer’s writings, but sometimes the poet alters this regularity to acommodate his poetry to the metrical,
stylistical and rhyming rules of the verse, making use of structures considered to be more complex from a syntactic point of view. Thus, five main patterns can be found.
1
Throughout this paper we will use Quirk’s terminology as comp-element to refer to
adjectives as the heads of comparisons, either in the form of equality or superiority
(Quirk et al. 1972: 765-68).
70
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
a) The first term is inserted in the comp -element, that is, between the adjective
and the second particle. The pattern used in this case responds to the
following structure: {so/as + adjective + first term + as} + second term1.
- Nas nevere yet seyn thyng to ben preysed derred,
Nor unde cloude blak so bright a sterre
As was Criseyde. Tr, I, 174-76.
b) Chaucer also collocates the verb within the comp -element, forming the
pattern {so/as + adjective + verb + as} + second member.
- And she, for sorwe 2, as doumb stant as a tree. MLT, 1055.
In addition, we may also locate examples in which more than one verb can
be placed in the position mentioned. The next case illustrates the adjective
(faire) followed by two verbs (lye and brenne), both placed within the
bounds of the comparison, that is, between the constituents of the comp -element.
- Yet wole the fyr as faire lye and brenne
As twenty thousand men myghte it biholde3. WBT, 1142-43.
c) This third possibility conveys the combination of the previous ones, for
the poet places the first term and the verb between the adjective and the second particle which constitute the comp -element, showing the pattern {so/as +
adjective + verb + first term} + second member. However, we should also
bear in mind that Chaucer makes use of some freedom in the collocation of
the verb and the first member of the comparison since sometimes the verb
precedes it and in others the subject does. This variability between these two
sentential elements responds to rhyming and metrical causes. The verse used
by Chaucer, iambic pentameter, consists of five feet of two syllables (stressed
and unstressed, respectively) and that is precisely what the poet aims to
manage with this variability of positions: the maximum perfection of his
pentameters.
1
2
3
We should observe that this type of ordering is very closely related to the contemporary clauses of consequence, such as he was so noble a man that …, it was so
difficult a task that …, etc.
It should be taken into account that, in this case, for sorwe is also inserted between
the first term and the comp-element.
Notice that the presence of the numeral in this example adds even more hyperbolic
connotations to the stereotype.
71
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
- To gróund(e) / déd she / fálleth / ás a / stón. AA, 70.
This same pattern is also observed in comparisons of superiority.
- A fáirer / sáugh I / néver(e) / nóon than / shé. ClT, 1032.
d) Sometimes a subordinated clause (of time, of place, etc.) can be positioned
within the comp -element structure.
- Ther nys, ywis, no serpent so cruel,
Whan man tret on his tayl, en half so fel,
As womman is, whan she hath caught an ire. SmT, 2001-2.
Like the subordinated clause, other elements may appear functioning as
proper adjective complements.
- And but I be to-morn as fair to seene
As any lady, emperice, or queene
That is bitwixe the est and eke the west. WBT, 1245-47.
e) Finally, we have observed another pattern which is considered to be more
interesting from a linguistic point of view for a complete alteration in the
natural sequence of constituents occurs: the second member of the comparison preceeds its comp -element (its adjective). This structure is very peculiar
and characteristic of poetry and Chaucer, a master of this art, makes a profitable use of it. The rhetorical figure which occurs here is that generally
known as hyperbaton (Mayoral Ramírez 1993: 655).
- Love is a thyng as any spirit free.
Wommen, of kynde, desiren libertee. FranT, 767-68.
Furthermore, this pattern admits the appearance of other sentential elements between the comp -element and its second term.
- As any wezele his body gent and smal. MilT, 3234.
Chaucer tends to use these stereotyped structures when he is describing
places and characters. By placing the comp -element at the end of the line, he
emphasizes the quality described by the adjective because, as such, it generally constitutes a stressed syllable in the prosodic structure of the line. Besides, the poet als o alters the regular pattern owing to rhyming necessities. It
is quite significant that in the seven examples found with this pattern the adjective is made to rhyme with another word forming couplets.
- Upon his hand he bar for his deduyt
An egle tame as any lilye whyt. KnT, 2177-78.
72
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
3.2. POSITION OF STEREOTYPED COMPARISONS
Next, we will study those positions of the stereotyped comparisons within
the scope of the verse. Thus, three positions have been observed: they may
head the line, end it, or even be split on two verses. The position adopted by
the stereotype, which is never arbitrary, chiefly depends on the metrical and
rhyming characteristics of each line. This explains Chaucer’s preference to
place as fiers as leon at the beginning, to make a perfect consonantic rhyme
between the words herd and swerd.
- Whan he hym knew, and hadde his tale herd,
As fiers as leon pulled out his swerd. KnT, 1597-98.
This situation is also observed in the two following examples in which the
stereotyped comparison is placed at the end and on two lines to make the
words sloo and free rhyme with two and me, respectively 1.
- Ful smale ypulled were hire browes two,
And tho were bent and blake as any sloo. MilT, 3245-46.
- And yeven hym my trewe herte as free
As he swoor he yaf his herte to me. SqT, 541-42.
Finally, it is important to mention those stereotypes which show an unusual type of combination. We are referring to those cases in which the
comp -element and its second term do not constitute a comparative clause
but, on the contrary, both appear together and generally the second member
preceding. Although the surface structure does not show any comparative
formula, we are in fact dealing with a variant of stereotyped comparisons
since the deep structure reveals the presence of a term which perfectly
denotes the quality of the adjective in a maximum and hyperbolic degree.
- He hadde a beres skyn, col-blak for old. KnT, 2142.
Thus, these structures must be considered as another form of stereotyped
comparison. They constitute an advanced level of fossilization and lexicalization since formulae like col-clak or snow white are in fact equivalent to the
1
Although rhyme is very important, we cannot forget that prosody plays its counterpart importance since another syntactic distribution would have broken the perfection of Chaucer’s pentameter.
73
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
stereotypes blak as coal and white as snow, however, the former shows a
more advanced level of assimilation appearing jointly 1. These lexicalizations
usually take place with hue-adjectives, such as reed, white, blak, and so on.
- A somonour was ther with us in that place,
That hadde a fyr-reed cherubynnes face, […]. GP, 623-24.
- Two corones han we,
Snow white and rose reed, that shynen cleere […]. SNT, 253-54.
3.3. EQUALITY VERSUS SUPERIORITY
3.3.1. Frequency
It is well known that the constituents required for the occurrence of a
stereotyped comparison are (1) an adjective, (2) a second term or referent and
(3) the correlative particles/morphemes employed to mark the degree of
comparison or intensification, such as more … than or -er than for superiority, as … as for equality and less … than for inferiority, which is the least
commonly used and most difficult to hear. As Jespersen (1969: 224) points
out, “comparisons with less are not very frequent; instead of less dangerous
than, we often say not so dangerous as, and whenever there are two adjectives of opposing meaning, we say […] weaker than rather than less strong
than”. According to this fact, although the majority of the examples collected
in our corpus appear in the comparison of equality2 as/so … as (81.73%), the
superiority construction (more/-er than) is also found but in a lesser degree
1
From a diachronic point of view, this type of combination has been present in all the
stages of the history of English (Cf. Shakespeare, Tit, II, ii, 76). Sometimes examples
may be found showing the complete assimilation of the adjective and its referent,
appearing together: Now whenas darkesome night had all displayd / Her coleblacke
curtein over brightest skye, […]. Spenser. The Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 4,
389. Notice that Espejo Muriel (1990) cites similar structures in her detailed
analysis of hue adjectives in Spanish, with examples like verdemar or verdemontaña.
2
This tendency towards the use of the degree of equality is something inherent in the
English language because it has followed the same pattern in all the stages of its
history. Notice, however, the opposite direction followed by Spanish with its preference for the degree of superiority since the Baroque period (Beinhauer 1973: 259).
74
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
(18.26%). The following examples illustrate how the same stereotype is used
with both constructions.
- His nayles whitter than the lylye flour,
And lyk the burned gold was his colour. NPT, 2863-64.
- And over that his cote-armour
As whit as is a lilye flour,
In which he wol debate. Th, 866-68.
These two examples are not isolated. Chaucer’s literary production is full
of similar contrasts, like fressh as May and fressher then the May with floures
newe; as hard as any stoon and harder than is a ston. The existence of these
alternative constructions with the same stereotypes (equality versus
superiority) made us think over their semantic value to check whether they
were completely synonymous or not, that is, if any distinction could be taken
into account to justify the use of one or the other.
3.3.2. Semantic Value
The state of the art can be summarized as follows: on the one hand, some
specialists led by Beinhauer (1968: 249-50) defend that it is unnecessary to
establish any kind of semantic difference between both types of structures
since they are virtually felt to be synonyms. On the other hand, Chantraine de
van Praag (1982: 815-16) thinks it is compulsory to make a semantic distinction between the comparison of equality and that of superiority, labelling the
former ‘qualitative’ and the latter ‘quantitative comparison’, that is, the more
(adjective) than comparison seems to be more dynamic and hyperbolic and
intensifies the expression much more than that with as … as.
Given such opposed points of view, we are left to adopt the most reasonable interpretation and we actually believe that the only difference is to be
found just in the frequency with which they appear (as … as is more frequent) considering that from a semantic point of view forms like as hard as
any stoon and harder than any ston mean very hard and both can be offered
as free variants for the same meaning (Zuluaga 1980: 149). Moreover, the lack
of any kind of semantic difference may also be demonstrated analysing some
examples translated by Chaucer.
- Estoit plus noir que meure. de Lorris, RR, 941.
75
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
- Blak as bery or ony slo. Chaucer, RR, 928.
The example mentioned illustrates that Chaucer is not concerned with the
degree of the original French adjective (equality being more frequent than
superiority) and tends to translate it using the degree of equality. Therefore,
if there had been any semantic difference in the Middle Ages, Chaucer’s
modus operandi would have been somehow different. Thus, the choice of a
particular structure must never be considered to be a question of semantics
but the contribution of equal forces, that is, the intrinsic tendency of every
language and even metrics whose powerful influence is decisive in the choice
of a specific degree of the comparison, as shown in the following examples.
- His náyles / whítter / thán the / lylie flóur. NPT, 2863.
- An égle / táme as / ány / lílye / whyt. KnT, 2178.
4. ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND TERM
Next, the second member of the comparison will be studied from a double
perspective, that is, (1) from a morphosyntactic and (2) from a semantic point
of view.
First, we will analyse the second term of stereotyped comparisons from a
morphological and syntactic point of view to observe the nature of its constituents.
a) It has been observed that the second member may be a noun. In
fact, the presence of a noun is essential so that these comparative
structures may be regarded as stereotypes, otherwise, they could
never have been fossilized.
- He is as angry as a pissemyre [sic]
Though that he have al that he kan desire. SumT, 1825-26.
Although the head of the second term is generally a noun, however, this
noun can be extensively complemented by any kind of phrase specifying the
head. The purpose of this complementation is to emphasize the high gradual
dimensions of the stereotype. Mayoral Ramírez (1993: 651) asserts that the
76
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
noun phrase forming the second member can be expanded, lengthened or extended by any type of complementation: adjectival phrases, prepositional
phrases, relative clauses, that is, formulae used with the aim of highlighting
the hyperbolic character of the stereotyped structures.
- Hir flesh was tendre as dew of flour
Hir chere was symple as byrde in bour. RR, 1013-14.
- Ful ofte his lady from hire wyndow doun,
As fressh as faukoun comen out of muwe. Tr, III, 1783-84.
- Soul as the turtle that lost hath hire make. MerT, 2080.
In these stereotypes, the referent usually expresses a high and hyperbolic
degree of comparison. However, in most occasions an isolated noun is not
able to transmit that high intensity and it resorts to the complementation by
other gramatical categories which help to define more precisely the meaning
of the stereotype. Therefore, it is not the same to say *soul as the turtle that
soul as the turtle that lost hath hire make; the former being completely
meaningless whereas the latter emphasizes that high degree of isolation that
the comparison conveys.
Sometimes the second term may function as the subject of a sentence, the
verb of which is sometimes omitted depending on the metrical and stylistic
necessities of each line. In fact, we are dealing with a poetic license on the
part of the poet.
- And of Creseyde thou hast seyd as the lyste
That maketh men to wommen lasse triste
That be as trewe as ever was any steel. LGW, 332-34.
- But doutelees, as trewe as any steel
I have a wyf, though that she poure be. MerT, 2426-27.
There are significant differences between the examples mentioned above
for the former includes a verb functioning as the main one whereas the latter
makes use of the copular verb been on two occasions, as a main one and as
the verb of the second term of the comparison. The two verbs that usually
appear with the second term of the comparison are been and don.
- And eke this hous hath of entrees
As fele as of leves ben in tress
In somer, whan they grene been. HF, 1945-47.
77
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
- But nathelees, his purpos heeld he stille
As lordes don whan they wol han hir wille. ClT, 580-81.
- Ye ride as coy and stille as dooth a mayde
Were newe spoused, sittynge at the bord. ClT, 2-3.
Obviously, the presence of these verbs with the second term of the comparison, despite the fact it may be omitted, is due to the metrical circunstances of that specific line. Therefore, the presence of these sentences in the
structure of the second member of the comparison helps to specify and highlight the dimensions of the stereotype.
b) Although the grammatical category that usually appears in the referent is that of a noun, we can also find examples where an adjective makes up the second term. In these cases, it is necessary to
establish some differences because this is just a comparative structure which could never be interpreted as a stereotype. That is, the
following example formulates a casual comparison (with an adjective as referent) which could rarely manage to fossilize or lexicalize.
- It as long was as it was large. RR, 1351.
Thus, stereotyped comparisons can only be regarded as such when the
second term of the comparison counts on the obligatory presence of a noun,
otherwise, it is just a casual form of comparison with scarce possibilities of
lexicalization. Moreover, from a semantic point of view, we realize that it is not
completely accurate to consider them a comparison in the fullest sense as the
relationship established between the constituents does not serve as an expression of a measurable and gradual quality. On the contrary, they generally
express a quality actually voiced in the highest degree and, therefore, are semantically equivalent to a proper superlative and, in some cases, the degree
of the adjective is so extreme that they can be considered as hyperbolic. As
the following example shows, nothing can be blinder than a stone and, as
such, they are regarded as hyperbolic.
- This Januarie, as blynd as is a stoon,
With Mayus [sic] in his hand, and no wight mo,
Into his fresshe gardyn is ago […]. MerT, 2156-58.
78
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
Nevertheless, on some occasions it should also be observed how
Chaucer uses the same adjective for comp -element and for the second term.
Undoubtedly, this procedure of using the same adjective twice in the same
comparative structure pretends to put even more emphasis on the
relationship between the comp -element and its second member, usually an
object which contains that quality in its intrinsic nature.
- His voys was murier than the murie orgon. NPT, 2851.
- Whit was this crowe as is a snow-whit swan. ManT, 133.
The poet is here comparing a quality (murie and whit) and the appearance
of the same adjective in the second member of the comparison illustrates how
these compared elements (orgon and swan) contain that quality in the
highest sense. Porto Dapena (1973: 356) remarks that stereotyped comparisons, either equality or superiority, are equal to real superlatives when the
second term contains the quality expressed by the adjective in the highest,
and in these cases the maximum degree is highlighted by the presence of the
same adjective in the referent. This type of combinations, although scarce in
Chaucer’s works, should be taken into account for they could have been a
precursor to the present-day expression whiter than white1.
Besides the componential analysis of the second term, we can also study
the semantic field to which the noun constituting the second term can be related to. Accordingly, three main groups can be found2 on the grounds that
they can be related to a natural, cultural and social context.
a) The first group contains those nouns referring to nature. Thus, the
natural environment provides the poet with a wide variety of elements traditionally considered stereotypes of a given quality and,
in particular, those nouns used for naming animals, plants and
natural phenomena become the most numerous group.
- […] Have herte as hard as dyamaunt
Stedefast and nought pliaunt. RR, 4383-84.
1
2
Cf. Oxford English Dictionary. 1993. 2nd ed. on Compact Disk. OUP, Oxford.
Mayoral Ramírez (1993: 650-51) establishes a similar group classification in his
analysis of Spanish stereotypes, however, he prefers to omit those ones referring to
the social context of the period. Thus, his grouping turns out to be somehow incomplete.
79
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
- For ay as bisy as bees
Been they, us sely men for to deceyve,
And from the soothe evere wol they weyve. MerT, 2422-24.
- […] he seith nat ones nay,
But was as glad therof as fowel of day, […]. ShT, 37-38.
- This strem you ledeth to the sorweful were
There as the fish in prysoun is al drye. PF, 138-391.
b) A second group, which is less numerous than the former, includes
nouns denoting famous and mythological personages. These references can be taken from the Bible, on the one hand, and from the
classical literature, on the other. Latin and Greek allusions, however, clearly domain owing to the humanistic education of the poet
in London.
- […] For thou shalt, by thin owene experience,
Konne in a chayer rede of his sentence
Bet than Virgile, while he was on lyve,
Or Dante also […]. FrT, 1517-20.
- Ful ofte tyme I rede that no man truste in his owene perfeccioun,
but he be stronger than Sampson, […]. ParsT, 955.
- And but I do, God take on me vengeance
As foul as evere hadde Genylon of France. ShT, 193-942.
In fact, these cultural allusions are suitable and adequate for stereotyped
comparisons for they always refer to famous and, therefore, they fulfill the
lexicalization requirements: to provide hyperbolic and superlative meaning
necessary to this kind of structures.
c) Third, a large group of second terms contains nouns such as boos,
noble, bacheler which reflect the social environment of the poet,
that is, instruments or even ways of thinking of Chaucer’s medieval England.
- A brooch she baar upon his lowe coler
1
2
Cf. also RvT, 3926; MilT, 3807; RR, 546; HF, 1681; NPT, 2859; etc.
Cf. also BD, 661-62; Tr, I, 454-55; BD, 1080-82; FranT, 1109-10; HF, 1232; PhyT,
49; CYT, 1413; NPT, 3362-65; etc.
80
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
As brood as is the boos of a bokeler. MilT, 3265-66.
- Ful brighter was the shynyng of his hewe
Than in the Tour the noble yforged newe 1. MilT, 3255-56.
- Yong, fressh, and strong, in armes desirous
As any bacheler of al his hous. SqT, 23-24.
- […] Hym oghte nat be tiraunt ne crewel
As is a fermour, to doon the harm he kan. LGW, 377-782.
5. CONCLUSIONS
As a conclusion of our analysis, we would like to highlight those features
which directly or indirectly ease the process of lexicalization of these
stereotypes.
One. We have already mentioned the colloquial origin of these structures. It is the individual who is continually and unconsciously
creating and banishing them owing to the speech-acts of a given
linguistic community. Therefore, lexicalization and fossilization
must be regarded as an active and everchanging process which always depends on the speech-act of that specific community. However, that speech-act on the part of the individual is not the only
element favouring the process of lexicalization. Other intrinsic
linguistic forces must be considered as affecting not only the process but also the degree of fossilization that a given stereotype
can acquire in a language.
Two. The rhetorical figure of alliteration plays a significant role because in most occasions the comp -element exhibits the same alliterative sense as the second term. Examples of this type abound in
all the stages of English (cf. as stille as stoon. Tr, III, 699); in
1
Biggam’s analysis of the social implications of hue adjectives conforms perfectly to
the process of lexicalization of stereotyped comparisons. Biggam (1993: 50) asserts
that "yellow hair indicates beauty in men as well as women, when combined with
brightness". Thus, this stereotype reflects the social values of a given culture.
2
Cf. also RR, 2694; ClT, 1198; HF, 1348; CYT, 617; SumT, 2090; MilT, 3261-62;
MerT, 1673; SumT, 2267-68
81
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
Shakespeare we come across as swift as swallow (Tit, IV, ii, 174)
and in contemporary English as snug as a bug in a rug, as big as
bull-beef, as flat as a flawn or stable as a stone (Calle and Miranda
1997)1. Thus, the existence of such consonantism directly eases
the process of fossilization: it is produced with more speediness
and effectiveness because it allows the speaker of a given
language the task of memorising. So, its degree of appearance in
the speech-act of the community is undoubtedly potentialized.
Three. Another linguistic feature to be considered as influencing the
process of lexicalization is prosody. Many stereotyped comparisons respond to a same metric pattern in which one stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed one (sóft às sílk, thíck às glúe).
This pattern based on the alternative use of stressed and
unstressed syllables speeds up the oral component of the
stereotype and this fact produces a more effective and widely
spread lexicalization. In fact, through the compilation of the
examples in contemporary English (Calle and Miranda 1997), we
have realized that the majority of the present-day stereotypes are
formed by monosyllabic and bisyllabic adjectives and, as such, it
demonstrates that the shorter they are, the quicker they manage to
lexicalize. The only exceptions found in current English are as
different as chalk to cheese and as slippery as an eel, whereas the
rest of the stereotypes compiled contain one-or-two-syllable
adjectives.
Four. Nowadays, we count on another extralinguistic characteristic. In
fact, the decisive influence played by the mass media can make a
given stereotype fossilize with extreme rapidity compared with the
dim and difficult process of fossilization found in the medieval
society.
All in all, the process of lexicalization operating in the would-be stereotyoped comparisons must be understood as something open and dynamic, as
1
All these cases have been analysed in our conference held in Thessaloniki (Greece)
on April 11th 1997. Cf. Calle Martín, J. and Miranda García, A. Stereotyped Comparisons in Contemporary English: Origin, Analysis and Classification. 11th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. Diss. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), 1997.
82
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
the contribution of equal and parallel forces occur. It is something changeable for the speaker tends to use these comparative metaphors and, in most
occasions, he/she devises and makes them up according to the needs of the
message (González Calvo 1985: 137) and, as such, the community will have
the capacity of banishing and creating new ones at the same time. If Chaucer
himself had ever referred to these stereotypes, we dare say he would have
defined them as chaungynge as a fane (ClT, 996) and as swift as thought (HF,
1924) to emphasize their mutability. Right now new stereotyped comparisons
might be being coined which, beyond any doubt, will be the object of future
studies.
Javier Calle Martín
University of Malaga
REFERENCES
Alighieri, Dante 1942: La Divina Commedia. 6th ed. G. C. Sansoni, Firenze.
Apulée 1940: Les Métamorphoses. 2 vols. Societé D’Édition ‘Les Belles Letres’, Paris.
Beinhauer, Werner 1968: El Español Coloquial. Ed. Gredos, Madrid.
Benson, L. D. ed. 1991: The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. OUP, Oxford.
Bensoussan, Albert 1996: La Traducción Lúdica. Diss. University of Malaga.
Biggam, C. P. 1993: Aspects of Chaucer’s Adjectives of Hue. The Chaucer
Review 28.1: 41-53.
Burnley, David 1985: A Guide to Chaucer’s Language. Macmillan, London.
Calle Martín, J. & Miranda García, A. 1997: Stereotyped Comparisons in
Contemporary English: Origin, Analysis and Classification. 11 International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. Diss.
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki (Greece).
83
Javier Calle Martín
____________________________________________________________________
Calle Martín, J. 1996: La Comparación Estereotipada en la Obra de Geoffrey
Chaucer. University of Malaga, Malaga.
Chantraine de van Praag, J. 1982: Intensidad Expresiva de las Comparaciones
Estereotipadas. Actas del Cuarto Congreso Internacional de
Hispanistas. University of Salamanca, Salamanca. 815-16.
Chaucer: Life and Times. 1995: Primary Source Media Ltd.
Chrétien de Troyes 1987: Perceval ou le Roman du Graal. Gallimard, Cher.
Dillon, Janette 1993: Geoffrey Chaucer: Writers in their Time. Macmillan,
London.
Espejo Muriel, Mª del Mar 1990: Los Nombres de los Colores en Español.
Estudio de Lexicología Estructural. University of Granada, Granada.
González Calvo, J. M. 1985: Sobre la Expresión de lo ‘Superlativo’ en Es pañol
(II). Anuario de Estudios Filológicos, 8: 113-45.
Gutiérrez Díez, F. 1995: Idiomaticidad y Traducción. Cuadernos de Filología
Inglesa 4: 27-42.
Hatim, Basil & Mason, Ian 1990: Discourse and the Translator. Longman,
London and New York.
Jespersen, Otto 1969: Essentials of English Grammar. George Allen & Unwin,
London.
Jonin, Pierre ed. 1985: La Chanson de Roland. Gallimard, Cher.
Kerkhof, J. 1982: Studies in the Language of Geoffrey Chaucer. Leiden University Press, Leiden.
Lorris, Guillaume de 1985: Le Roman de la Rose. Barcelona.
Mayoral Ramírez, J. A. 1993: Sobre Construcciones Comparativas en el
Lenguaje Poético de los Siglos XVI y XVII. Estudios Filológicos en
Homenaje a Eugenio de Bustos Tovar. Eds. J. A. Bartol Hernández &
al. 2 vols. University of Salamanca, Salamanca. 641-56.
Mustanoja, T. 1960: A Middle English Syntax. Societé Neophilologiqué,
Helsinki.
Oxford English Dictionary. 1993: 2nd ed. on compact disk. Oxford: OUP.
84
Stereotyped comparisons in the language of Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
Quirk, Randolph et al. 1972: A Grammar of Contemporary English. Longman,
London.
Redoli Morales, R. 1996: Chisnetos. Atenea, Malaga.
*†*
85
THE CLASSICAL AND MODERN
CONCEPT OF AUCTORITAS
IN GEOFFREY CHAUCER’S
THE CANTERBURY TALES1
And where as ye seyn that Fortune hath norissed yow fro youre
childhede,
I seye that in so muchel shul ye the lasse truste in hire and in hir
wit.
For Senec seith, “What man that is norissed by Fortune,
she maketh hym a greet fool.”2
Chaucer makes use of the auctoritas whenever he wants to look for support and evidence. Her quotations are mainly taken from the Bible and the
authors of Classical Antiquity are thought in the Middle Ages to be the most
reliable references to exemplify “teachings”, “morals” and “behaviour”. In
this essay, we will trace and analyze the concept of auctoritas from the
Classical point of view, commenting what Latin authors think about the matter, and then we will see what Late Latinity authors hold about this concept.
Finally, we will show how Chaucer applies the concept and why he does so.
I
1
I owe a quite incalculable debt to Dr. Ricardo J. Sola Buil (amico aeterno et magistro
doctissimo), for his permanent support and help in everything related to this paper.
And also special thanks to Dr. María José Muñoz Jiménez, Lecturer in Latin
language and literature at the Faculty of Arts of Complutense University (Madrid),
in searching for the appropriate bibliography of this paper.
2
Larry D. Benson, Ed. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd. Ed. Oxford: OUP, 1987. The Tale
of Melibee, v.v. 1452-5, p. 230.
José María Gutiérrez Arranz, Selim 6 (1998): 85—102
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
In the Old Latin period the concept of auctoritas is used in several contexts and with different meanings, depending on the author who uses it. Cicero, for instance, from the juridical point of view, uses auctoritas as usus
auctoritas or usucapio, i. e., when someone acquires something after a long
possession, which implies the prescription of its old proprietor’s rights, either
by force or by legal rights. In both cases the authority referred to is the document, written or oral, that regulates social relationships. Relating to husband
and wife 1: “Cum mulier viro in manum convenit, omnia quae mulieris fuerunt
viri fiunt dotis nomine” (When a woman comes under the manus (legal
control) of her husband, all her property goes to the husband under the
designation of dowry.) Relating to a foreigner or stranger.2 “Indicant
duodecim tabulae: aut status dies cum hoste, itemque: adversus hostem
aeterna auctoritas” (This is proved by the usage in the Twelve Tables: “Or a
day fixed for trial with a stranger” (hostis). And again: “Right of ownership is
inalienable for ever in dealings with a stranger” (hostis)). It also means
guarantee from a tutor” 3: “si M. Marcelli tutoris auctoritas apud te ponderis
nihil habebat,” (if the personal authority of the boy’s guardian Marcus Marcellus counted for nothing with you). Relating to a public registry:4: “Immo
vero iis tabulis professus, quae solae ex illa professione collegioque praetorum obtinent publicarum tabularum auctoritatem” (He did report himself; and,
what is more, out of all the declarations made at that time before the board of
praetors, his alone was supported by documents which possess all the
weight of official sanction).
Another use of authority refers to the personal prestige of someone
based on knowledge or moral standing. Relating to the lawyers’ opinion:5
“Num destitit uterque nostrum in ea causa, in auctoritatibus, in exemplis, in
testamentorum formulis, hoc est, in medio iure civili, versari?” (In these
proceedings were not both of us unceasingly occupied with decisions, with
precedents, with forms of wills, with questions, in fact, of common law all
around of us?). Relating to eulogistic position:6 “quantam putas auctoritatem
1
Cicero. Topica, IV, 23.
Cicero. De Officiis, I, 12, 37.
3
Cicero. Contra Verrem, part II, I, 55, 144.
4
Cicero. Pro Archia Poeta, IV, 9.
5
Cicero. De Oratore, I, 39, 180.
6
Cicero. Contra Verrem, part II, IV, 9, 19. See, also, Cornelius Nepos, Miltiades, 8.4;
Cicero, Contra Verrem, part II, IV, 27, 60; Caesar, De Bello Gallico, 7, 77, 3; Ci2
87
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
laudationis eorum futuram, si in eum quem constet verum pro testimonio
dixisse poenam constituerint?” (how much weight do you expect to be
attached to their eulogy of you, after their decreeing the punishment of the
man who has admittedly spoken the truth as a witness?)
The authority also deals with the warfare matters, in which certain illustriores viri stand out: nothing more brilliant and authoritative concerning
warfare:1 “nihil illustriore auctoritate de bellis, nihil de re publica gravius”
(Nothing more brilliant and authoritative concerning warfare, nothing more
weighty concerning state affairs). To lead the campaign with great prestige:2
“Quorum adventu magna cum auctoritate et magna cum hominum multitudine
bellum gerere conantur.” (Upon their arrival they attempted (to lead) the
campaign with great prestige and a great host of men).
Finally, the main element in Roman administration, together with the
Roman people, the Senate, was another source of authority: to obey the authority of the senate:3 “Is qui auctoritati senatus, voluntati tuae paruit,
denique is tulit cui minime proderant.” (A man who obeyed the authority of
the Senate and your wishes, the man, in short, who stood to get least from
them.). In disregard of the Senate’s authority:4 “Inde iter Alexandriam contra
senatus auctoritatem, contra rem publicam et religiones” (Then he journeyed
to Alexandria, in disregard of the Senate’s authority, in disregard of the interests of the State, and the sanctions of religion). Through the support of
the senate:5 “quod ex auctoritate senatus consensu bonorum omnium pro
salute patriae gessissem” (I had achieved for my country’s well-being by the
union of patriots and through the support of the Senate).
II
cero, Brutus, LII, 221; Contra Verrem, part II, V, 32, 84-85; Pro Rege Deiotaro, XI,
30; Pro M. Fonteio, 1; Caesar, De Bello Gallico, 3, 8, 3.
1
Cicero. Pro Balbo, I, 2.
2
Caesar. De Bello Gallico, 3, 23, 4. See, also, Cicero, Contra Verrem, part I, 17, 52;
De Officiis, III, 30, 109; Cornelius Nepos, Alcibiades, 3, 1-2.
3
Cicero. Pro Murena, 47.
4
Cicero. Philippicae, II, 19, 48.
5
Cicero. De Domo Sua, XXXV, 94. See, also, Cicero, Contra Verrem, part II, III, 7,
17; Epistulae ad Familiares, I, 2, 7; Epistulae ad Atticum, I, 19, 2; Livy, Ab Urbe
Condita, IX, 7, 7.
88
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
Once we have checked the meanings of the word auctoritas in the Ancient times, mainly in Cicero and other Classical writers, let us go to the
Middle Ages and revise the uses of the concept of “auctoritas”. There are, at
least, four groups in which we can divide the meanings of this word: the royal
authority: “Rex directa auctoritate praecepit comiti” 1 (The King warned his
companion by means of his direct order); “Qui sola faciende pacis intentione
regali sola distinatur autoritate.”2 This with the only intention of making
peace appointed a gift by his own order); “Coram principe vel his, quos sua
princeps auctoritate preceperit.”3 (In the presence of the Prince or others,
who the Prince warned with his order).
Another meaning of authority is the established or social order: “Haec
omnia studuimus definire, quae praesenti auctoritate vulgamus.”4 (We have
studied in order to define all of these things, which we spread with the present order); “Ut auctoritatis cum justitia et lege competente in omnibus
maneant stabili firmitate, nec subsequentibus auctoritatibus contra legem
elecitis vacuentur.”5 (In order to maintain the mandates in the appropriate
justice and law for all the events and with a steady firmness, no resolution
will be emptied against the law by subsequent mandates).
Besides, the Church authority is included in this group: “Archiepiscopi
nostram auctoritatem (de manumittendis servis in presbyteros ordinandis),
suffraganei vero illorum exemplar illius penes se habeant.”6 (The Archbishops
in accordance with our mandate (in the case of loosing servants for being
ordained as priests), who indeed recommend those should have an issue like
this); “Obtulerunt excellentiae celsitudinis nostrae auctoritatem genitoris nos-
1
Gregorius Episcopus Turonensis. Historia Francorum, lib. 9, c. 41. All the translations into English, in this second part, are mine.
2
Lex Visigothorum, lib. 2, tit. 1.
3
Ib., lib. 6, tit. 1. Vid., also, Concilium Valentinianum a. 585, Concilia aevi
Merovingici et aevi Caronlini, I p. 163; Chlothovei praeceptum. (a. 511-561), c. 5,
Capitularia regum Francorum, I p. 19; Diplomata Merovingica, no. 33 (ca. a.
657/658); Lex Visigothorum, lib. 6 tit. 1, Charta Eligii a. 632, Scriptorum rerum
Merovingicarum, IV p. 748. Cf. Sickel, Acta Karolinorum, I p. 185.
4
Edictum Guntchramni a. 585, Capitularia regum Francorum, I p. 12.
5
Chlothovei praeceptum. (a. 511-561), c. 9, Capitularia regum Francorum; Vid.,
also, Marculfus, lib. 1 no. 2, Formulae, p. 42; Diplomata Merovingica, no. 10 (a.
625).
6
Capitulum Ecclesiasticum, a. 818/819, c. 6, I p. 277.
89
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
tri, in qua continebatur.”1 (They displayed the mandate of our excellent height
our father, in which it was included). The last group is related to any kind of
document: “Suas auctoritates ostenderent.”2 (They should show their
records).
III
These are the most common meanings of auctoritas in certain aspects or
fields relating all of them with the official and monastic world. If we have a
look at Chaucer’s uses of the word, or maybe his characters’ uses in the Canterbury Tales, the relationship with these meanings is different. We will try to
develop these uses, and then explain the possible reasons of them.
In the introduction of The Man of Law’s Tale, the Host warns the pilgrims
not to waste so much time in order to go on with the tales, and intends to
exemplify his warnings remembering certain words by Seneca: “Wel kan
Senec and many a philosophre / Biwaillen tyme moore than gold in cofre; /
For Los of catel may recovered be, / But los of tyme shendeth us, quod he.”3.
In Seneca it is available to find out these teachings: “omnes horas conplectere. Sic fiet, ut minus ex crastino pendeas, si hodierno manum inieceris.
Dum differtur, vita transcurrit. Omnia, Lucili, aliena sunt, temp us tantum
nostrum est.” (Hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of today’s task, and
you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are post.
poning, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time) 4
Once she has introduced her story, the Wife of Bath discusses the possibilities women have to conceal a secret. She is not sure of this: “And in o
purpos stedefastly to dwelle, / And nat biwreye thyng that men us telle. / But
that tale is nat worth a rake-stele. / Pardee, we wommen konne no thyng hele;
/ Witnesse on Myda - wol ye heere the tale? / Ovyde, amonges othere thyn-
1
Diplomata Charles II le Chauve, no. 61 (a. 845). Vid., also, Liber Pontificalis,
Liberius, ed. Mommsen, p. 77; Pardessus, II p. 423, no. 2 (a. 565).
2
Thévenin, Textes, no. 89 (a. 857).
3
Introduction to The Man of Law´s Tale, v. v. 25-28, p. 87.
4
Seneca. Epistulae Morales Ad Lucilium. Ed. & Trans. Richard M. Gummere. Vol. I.
Vol. IV of Seneca´s Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1979. I, 1, 1-3, p. 2-5.
90
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
ges smale.”1 Following the Wife’s advice, the answer to all this mistery is
clear: according to Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, King Midas was punished
severely after the judge in which Pan and Phoebus contested who of them
played more beautiful melodies. Obviously, Phoebus was the winner, but
Midas did not agree, and that was the reason for the King saw his ears growing overwhelmingly. He tried to conceal his secret, but Fortune tricked him:
the servant who used to cut the King’s hair dug a hole on the earth and whis pered what he has saw in it. Unfortunately the forest where the secret had
been buried betrayed the story: “Creber harundinibus tremulis ibi surgere lucus / coepit et, ut primum pleno maturuit anno, / prodidit agricolam: leni nam
motus ab austro / obruta verba refert dominique coarguit aures.”2 (But a trick
carpet of trembling reeds began to push up on the spot and, at the end of the
year, when they were full grown, the reeds betrayed their gardener: for, when
stirred by the gentle South wind, they uttered the words that had been
buried, and revealed the truth about his master’s ears).3
In the tale itself, the old lady tries to convince the knight about some
doubts he has. And she explains to him that: “Ther shul ye seen expres that it
no drede is that he is gentil that dooth gentil dedis,”4 and so in his life he
must endure the neverending obstacles destiny prepares, and even be
respectful to poverty, which does not mean feeling shameful: “Thanne am I
gentil, whan that I bigynne / to lyven vertuously and weyve synne. / And
ther as ye of poverte me repreeve, / the hye God, on whom that we bileeve, /
in wilful poverte chees to lyve his lif.”5 These ideas appear in certain authors
like Seneca, who advises Lucilius not to behave wrongly with other people:
“quem poena putaveris dignum” (Whom you regard as deserving of punishment). Moreover, Seneca disagrees with anyone who boasts richness and oppulence: he will feel happy with his disciple: “si contempseris etiam sordidum
panem, si tibi persuaseris herbam, ubi necesse est, non pecori tantum, sed
1
The Wife of Bath´s Tale, v. 945-82, p. 118.
P. Ovidio Nasón. Metamorfosis. Ed. & Trans. Antonio Ruiz de Elvira. Vol. III. 4th.
ed.. Alma Mater. Colección de Autores Griegos y Latinos. Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1994.
XI, 146-93, p. 20-2.
3
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Ed. & Trans. Mary M. Innes. London: Penguin Books, 1955.
XI, 146-93, p. 250-1.
2
4
5
The Wife of Bath´s Tale, v.v. 1169-70, p. 120.
The Wife of Bath´s Tale, v.v. 1175-9, p. 120-1.
91
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
homini nasci” (When you have learned to scorn even the common sort of
bread, when you have made yourself believe that grass grows for the needs
of men as well as of cattle).1
In The Merchant’s Tale, and after introducing the ageing knight of Lombardy and his desires of marrying, the merchant discusses about the pros and
cons of taking a wife and gives several famous opinions and examples of this:
“Ther nys no thyng in gree superlatyf, / As seith Senek, above an humble
wyf. / Suffre thy wyves tonge, as Catoun bit; / She shal comande, and thou
shalt suffren it, / And yet is she wole obeye of curteisye”.2 Cato’s words can
be found in his biography. This comment is taken from a Themistocles’
writing in which, discussing about women’s power, he said that: “Pavntes
a[nqpwpoi twn gunaikwn a[pcousin hmeis de; pavntwn anqpwvpon hmwn d’
aiv gunaikes.” (All men rule their wives; we rule all men; our wives rule us).
This argument also helped Cato to defend that: “w guvnai Aqhnaioi me;n
apcousi twn Ellhvnwn egw; d Aqhnaivwn emou de; suv sou d’ o uiovs.” (My
dear wife, the Athenians rule the Greeks; I rule the Athenians; you rule me;
and our son rules you.)3
Later, with his new wife, May, January found happiness. But this happiness would be only fictitious. The girl had met his real love, Damian, and two
furtive lovers have always means of tricking and that is something which was
easy for them. The merchant remembers the noble Ovid in order to dis play
this universal rule: “O noble Ovyde, ful sooth seystou, God woot, / What
sleighte is it, thogh it be long and hoot, / That Love nyl fynde it out in som
manere? / By Pyramus and Tesbee may men leere”4 Pyramus and This be’s
story is a good example of these typical lovers’ tricks. Both of them were the
authentic symbols of beauty and, although they did not feel anything to each
other, a passionate love began, and they had to fight against their families’
lack of appreciation. Their only means to communicate their love was a small
crack: “Fissus erat tenui rima” (There was a crack, a slender chink), something
1
Seneca. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium. Vol. III. Ed. & Trans. Richard M. Gummere.
Vol. VI of Seneca´s Works. Loeb Classical Library. London: William Heinemann
Ltd., 1971. CX, 2-4, p. 266-7; 12, p. 272-3.
2
The Merchant´s Tale, v. 1369-79, p. 155-6.
3
Plutarch. Lives: Aristeides and Cato. Ed. & Trans. David Sansone. Warminster,
Wiltshire: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1989. 35(8), 4-5, p. 106-7.
4
The Merchant´s Tale, v. 2125-31, p. 164.
92
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
which was unknown to everybody except to the lovers: “primi vidistis
amantes” (The lovers were the first to find it), who used appropriately:
“murmure blanditiae minimo transire solebant.”1 (By this means their
endearments were safely conveyed to one another, in the gentlest of
whispers.)2
Poor January insists on her wife’s demonstrations of love, but May cannot stand thinking about Damian. One of January’s treasures, his garden, is
the perfect witness of the gods Pluto and Proserpine presence, in a perfect
day: “Bright was the day, and blew the firmament;”, in which the stars were in
a very specific position: “Phebus hath of gold his stremes doun ysent / To
gladen every flour with his warmnesse. / He was that tyme in Geminis, as I
gesse, / But litel fro his declynacion / Of Cancer, Jovis exaltacion.” So, the
Gods’ presence intends to mistify the place: “And so bifel, that brighte
morwe-tyde / That in that gardyn, in the ferther syde, / Pluto, that is king of
Fayerye, / And many a lady in his compaignye, / Folwynge his wyf, the
queene Proserpyna”.3 And the Merchant tries to memorize the source when
he read this: “In Claudian ye may the stories rede”.4 The merchant shows his
knowledge about the matter. The tragedy seemed to search for Proserpine
while, escorted by his sisters (Venus included) in the fields, collecting flowers, a strange grumble came up from the darkest depths: it was Pluto, and he
wanted to rape the goddess who implores the rest of the goddesses: “rapitur
Proserpina curru / imploratque deas.” (Proserpine is hurried away in the chariot, imploring aid of the goddesses). Pluto behaves like a wild animal: “ille
velut stabuli decus armentique iuvencam / cum leo possedit nudataque vis cera fodit / unguibus et rabiem totos exegit in armos.” (Pluto is like a lion
when he has seized upon a heifer, the pride of the stall and the herd, and has
torn with his claws the defenceless flesh and has sated his fury on all its
limbs).5
1
P. Ovidio Nasón. Metamorfosis. Ed. and Trans. Antonio Ruiz de Elvira. Vol. I. 5th
ed. Alma Mater. Colección de Autores Griegos y Latinos. Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1992.
IV, 55-77, p. 124-5.
2
. Cf., IV, 55-77, p. 95-6.
3
The Merchant´s Tale, v.v. 2219-29, p. 165-6.
4
The Merchant´s Tale, v.v. 2230-5, p. 166.
5
Claudian. De Raptu Proserpinae. Ed. & Trans. Maurice Platnauer. Vol. II of Claudian´s Works. Loeb Classical Library. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1972. II,
119-62, 204-13, p. 326-33.
93
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
Now, let us discuss the classical mentions in The Tale of Melibee. Prudence’s reaction after the sordid attack of his husband’s foes: “This noble
wyf Prudence remembred hire upon the sentence of Ovide, in his book that
cleped is the Remedie of Love”1 means a deep philosophical answer to that
horrible disgrace: “quis matrem, nisi mentis inops, in funere nati / flere vetet?
non hoc illa monenda loco est; / cum dederit lacrimas animumque impleverit
aegrum, / ille dolor verbis emoderandus erit.”2 (Who but a fool would try to
stop a mother weeping at her son’s graveside? That’s no place for advice.
When her tears are all shed, when her heartache’s had appeasement, then use
your words to ease the knot of pain.)3
Prudence advises Melibeus not to exceed in pain: “Mesure of wepyng sholde be considered after the loore that techeth us Senek”.4 Seneca’s words
are definite: although we can be stung with tears: “sed tantum vellicabit.” (it
will be only a sting). It’s better to look for another person than to remember
always the lost friend: “quem amabas, extulisti; quaere, quem ames. Satius est
amicum reparare quam flere.” (You have buried one whom you loved; look
about for someone to love. It is better to replace your friend than to weep for
him).5
Melibee is recommended by Prudence in several ways, following mainly
Seneca’s and Cicero’s teachings. It’s better to avoid flatterings and flatterers:
“Amonges alle the pestilences that been in freendshipe the gretteste is flaterie. And therfore is it moore nede that thou eschue and drede flatereres than
any oother peple.”6. The applied words are related to the fact that we should
only trust in friends, and doing that way: “Isdemque temporibus cavendum
est, ne assentatoribus patefaciamus auris neve adulari nos sinamus” (Under
1
The Tale of Melibee, v.v. 975-7, p. 217.
P. Ovidi Nasonis. Remedia Amoris. Ed. E.J. Kenney. Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis. Oxford: OUP, 1994. v.v. 127-30, p. 230.
3
Ovid. The Erotic Poems. Ed. & Trans. Peter Green. London: Penguin Books, 1982.
Cures for Love, v.v. 127-30, p. 242-3.
4
The Tale of Melibee, v.v. 990-2, p. 217-8.
5
Seneca. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium. Vol. I. Ed. & Trans. Richard M. Gummere.
Vol. IV of Seneca´s Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1979. LXIII, 1, p. 428-31; 11-12, p. 434-5.
6
The Tale of Melibee, v.v. 1175-6, p. 223.
2
94
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
such circumstances also we must beware of lending an ear to sycophants or
allowing them to impose upon us with their flattery).1
Another advice is that the power of an emperor is never eternal except he
will love his people rather than the pain: “Ther nys no myght so greet of any
emperour that longe may endure, but if he have moore love of the peple than
drede.”2 And we can find these words in Cicero. People is always searching
for just laws, for: “id si ab uno iusto et bono viro consequebantur, erant eo
contenti” (If the people secured their end at the hands of one just and good
man, they were satisfied with that). And this will be the essence of a key figure in every state: Justice, which is a permanent condition in all situations:
“Omni igitur ratione colenda et retinenda iustitia est cum ipsa per sese (nam
aliter iustitia non esset), tum propter amplificationem honoris et gloriae.”
(Justice is, therefore, in every way to be cultivated and maintained, both for
its own sake (for otherwise it would not be justice) and for the enhancement
of personal honour and glory).3
Prudence warns about the horrible wounds a weasel can make, and remembers Ovid: “The litel wesele wol slee the grete bole and the wilde hert.”4.
Ovid changes the comparation, as he uses a viper instead of a weasel: “parva
necat morsu spatiosum vipera taurum; / a cane non magno saepe tenetur
aper”.5 (The bite of a minuscule viper kills the massive ox, and it’s often some
lightweight dog that holds the wild boar at bay).6
Prudence remembers him about Fortune’s tricks: “What man that is
norissed by Fortune, she maketh hym a greet fool.”7 And Seneca does it in
the same way: he thinks that Fortune helps to anyone who has a complete
control on himself: “si qui habet illa, se quoque habet nec in rerum suarum
potestate est” (Only if he who possesses them is in possession also of himself, and is not in the power of that which belongs to him). Sometimes, there
1
Cicero. De Offficiis. Ed. & Trans. Walter Miller. Vol. XXI of Cicero´s Works. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975. I,
26, 91, p. 92-5.
2
The Tale of Melibee, v. 1191, p. 224.
3
Cf., II, 12, p. 208-13.
4
The Tale of Melibee, v. 1324, p. 227.
5
Cf., Remedia Amoris, v.v. 421-2, p. 243.
6
Cf., Cures for Love, v.v. 420-1, p. 251.
7
The Tale of Melibee, v. 1454, p. 230.
95
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
is another enemy when you have a desire for something: that some kind of
chance will turn against him. “nihil ex his optabilibus et caris utile esse, nisi te
contra levitatem casus rerumque casum sequentium instruxeris” (There is no
utility in all these desirable and beloved things, unless you equip yourself in
opposition to the fickleness of chance and its consequences).1
Prudence also thinks about someone who is extremely fearless, so that he
can be considered in this way: “He putteth hym in greet peril that stryveth
with a gretter man than he is hymself.”2 And, at that point, she is expressing a
Seneca’s opinion: the external appearance of a man can be a trap for anyone:
“hominum effigies habent, animos ferarum” (They have the aspect of men,
but the souls of brutes).3
To finish with this part of our paper, we will analyze three ideas by Cicero.
In the first, Prudence talks against raising our own benefit at the expense of
anyone: “No sorwe, ne no drede of deeth, ne no thyng that may falle unto a
man, / is so muchel agayns nature as a man to encressen his owene profit to
the harm of another man. / And though the grete men and the myghty men
geten richesses moore lightly than thou, / yet shaltou nat been ydel ne slow
to do thy profit, for thou shalt in alle wis e flee ydelnesse.”4. Cicero does not
want to take advantage of anyone in order to increase his properties: “nec
vero rei familiaris amplificatio nemini nocens vituperanda est, sed fugienda
semper iniuria est.” (Still, l do not mean to find fault with the accumulation of
property, provided it hurts nobody, but unjust acquisition of it is always to
be avoided).5
The second one holds that one’s house should be open in order to show
piety and devotion: “The goodes, of thyn hous ne sholde nat been hyd ne
kept so cloos, but that they myghte been opened by pitee and
debonairetee”.6 Cicero remembers the great men who held a property and:
“potiusque et amicis impertientes et rei publicae, si quando usus esset”
1
Cf., XCVIII, 2, p. 118-9; 4-5, p. 120-1.
The Tale of Melibee, v. 1487, p. 231.
3
Cf., CIII, 2, p. 188-9.
4
The Tale of Melibee, v.v. 1584-7, p. 233.
5
Cf., I, 8, 25, p. 26-7.
6
The Tale of Melibee, v. 1620, p. 234.
2
96
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
(Rather, if ever there were need, sharing it with their friends and with the
state).1
Finally, Prudence explains that there is nothing more beloved in a noble
man than being kind, gentle and appeased: “Ther is no thyng so comendable
in a greet lord / as whan he is debonaire and meeke, and appeseth him
lightly”.2 Seneca is thinking about three conditions a man should follow:
“colendum autem esse ita quemque maxime, ut quisque maxime virtutibus his
lenioribus erit ornatus, modestia, temperantia, hac ipsa, de qua multa iam dicta
sunt, iustitia” (The more a man is endowed with these finer virtues temperance, self-control, and that very justice about which so much has already been said - the more he deserves to be favoured).3
IV
Once we have discussed extensively the quotes in which Chaucer’s characters apply Classical writers doctrines, we will explain briefly what is the
meaning of these uses. These auctoritates provide a simple and a more complicated background to the environment Chaucer acts. On the one hand, on
some of these quotations we can see the influence of several philosophical
movements which survived in the Middle Ages, and which was a source of
permanent discussion at that time. If we consider Cicero’s and Seneca’s appearance, the motivations and opinions of the characters in the Tales are
conditioned by the auctoritates personal and philosophical idiosyncrasy.
Both the Arpinian and the Spanish philosopher devoted their lives to follow
two main streams: Epicureanism and Stoicism, and this is the motivation
Chaucer’s characters are engaged.
On the other hand, we must understand Chaucer’s behaviour in using the
Classical auctoritates. When summarizing the previous works, Willi Erzgräber4 defends that Chaucer acts in a “naïvely way” in The Book of the
1
Cf., I, 26, 92, p. 94-5.
The Tale of Melibee, v.v. 1859-60, p. 239.
3
Cf., I, 15, 46, p. 48-51.
4
Willi Erzgräber. “Auctorite” and “Experience” in Chaucer. Intellectuals and Writers
in Fourteenth-Century Europe. Eds. Piero Boitani & Anna Torti. The J. A. W.
Bennett Memorial Lectures, Perugia, 1984. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer eds., 1986.
2
97
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
Duchess, but, later on, we discover how he pretends to make up a poem
which means to produce a more practic effect on the reader. Blanche’s death
could be the excuse “to write a religious consolatio”, but, finally, Chaucer
interprets the poem as a result of a “Lex Naturalis, a moral law that derives
from the Stoa and was a basic element of medieval moral theology.” In this
sense, Ovid’s appearance with his famous Ceyx and Alcyone’s tale helps to
define the idea that “the good must be done and the evil avoided”: after her
husband’s shipwreck, Alcyone shows an excess of mourning, and this is
something against this natural law. Following this, the Black Knight has the
intention of beheaving in the same way, and then, he is about to trespass this
moral and philosophical law. Finally, his returning to the castle denies the
possibility of interfering in the commented rule.
In Troylus and Criseyde, the main characters are altered from the original
source of the poem, Il Filostrato by Giovanni Bocaccio. Troylus laughs at
the feeling of love, but when he realizes and discovers what this feeling really
means, he is completely isolated and nobody can help him appropriately.
Criseyde is also a pure unloyal character, but his personality suffers from an
evolution step by step until she is supposed to become a more than an individual woman, deeper psychologically than the Italian model. In both characters, the experience, more than the “auctorite” has a definite influence in their
lives.1
If we take into account the almost permanent influence of Ovid in
Chaucer’s works, we must assume that both had common characteristics, as
Helen Cooper thinks:2 “wit, good humour, urbanity, humanness”. The
Metamorphoses was an outstanding source of stories and commentaries for
most of Medieval writers, but Chaucer changed the general opinion in contemplating Ovid’s works as demystified opera to produce a Christian doctrine. Cooper holds that “Chaucer’s Ovid is the Ovid of narrative”: his borrowings occur within two areas. The first has to do with tale-telling, as
“Chaucer takes over not only, for example, the dwelling of Fama but the revealing of the secret of Midas’ ears and the crow’s punishment for scandalmongering. His other predilection is for stories of women in distress that
1
2
Cf., p. 67-87.
Helen Cooper. Chaucer and Ovid: A Question of Authority. Ovid Renewed. Ovidian
Influences on Literature and Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. Ed.
Charles Martindale. Cambridge: CUP, 1988.
98
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
could be developed for pathos”. His most striking divergence from Ovid is
“his refusal to countenance the idea of human metamorphosis into the less
than human”. A crow may turn black, but at the conclusion of the stories of,
e. g., Ceyx and Alcyone, “we are not told of nothing of the transformations
that are Ovid’s excuse for telling the stories at all”. Even more, in this narrative borrowings, Chaucer uses Claudian’s tale of the rape of Proserpine, but
both Pluto and Proserpine take up only to witness, as mere spectators, i. e.,
there is no reference to the rape of Proserpine, while May commits treachery
with respect to January, as it could be funny to think about a possible rape of
May by Damian. Ceyx and Alcyone story is read by the narrator before he
falls asleep, and the overt excuse for the retelling is to give him the idea of
praying to Morpheus for sleep. Helen Cooper also says that “the dream itself
mirrors in inverted from the story he has just read: it is a dream, not of a wife
who has lost her husband, but of a knight, “clothed al in blak”, who has lost
his lady”. The cause for Chaucer’s devising the whole poem was the death of
Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, and the poem functions “as an elegy for her
and as a consolatio for the bereaved husband”. Moreover, there is no more
suggestion of an afterlife for the lady White than for Alcyone. All of this
means that Chaucer, when ignoring such consideration as the truth of Chris tian resurrection or about Blanche’s ultimate destination, gives the suffering
of loss its full weight, “with no attempt to mitigate the grief of the bereaved
by considerations of the state of those who have passed to happier things”.
This can be considered as another Lex Naturalis, different from the one dis cussed above: the one in which, following partially the Pagan literary tradition for which the world and the life beyond should mean a more positive
place for the dead, Chaucer makes that “the Christian way to approach death
will convey putting man and his sufferings, not God and his Providence, in
the centre of the picture”. Death is something natural in the human life (that is
the obvious Lex Naturalis), but there is no reference to a possible salvation,
neither from the point of view of using Alcyone’s sufferings nor from the
more Christian position.
Two special examples in the Canterbury Tales (apart from the previous
analized one in The Merchant’s Tale) helps to understand this theory. The
Wife of Bath’s inset story of Midas and the Manciple’s tale of the crow,
“take the problem of the unreliability of language further”. In both stories,
“the tidynges that are being told are true: Midas does have ass’s ears, Phoe-
99
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
bus is indeed a cuckold”. Some things are much safer kept hidden, even if
they are true. The Wife of Bath, “with her relish for everything antifeminist,
transfers the revelation of Midas’ secret from his barber to his wife, so that
she can conclude,” We kan no conseil hyde”. What is provided by the
untold “remenant” of the tale is the fact that “it is the reeds that announce
the secret to the world; as the Wife has told it, “we wommen” are left with all
the responsibility for tattling”.1
These brief explanations confirm the idea that Chaucer has special and,
therefore, personal reasons to use all these Classical authors. We have dis cussed, in the first two parts of this essay, how the concept of auctoritas
suffered from an evolution based rather in the different political situations
than in the main characters who performed. The Senate was changed by the
Monarchy and the Church, the Tabularum Leges became the Papal or Royal
documents. Although our aim was to analyze the Classical quotations which
are closer to literary authorities than to other ones, anyway, we must remember that some of Chaucer’s characters display a more accurate behaviour
which is not far from certain means of knowledge: the Host assume his role
because the pilgrims do not forbid that role. In each case, Chaucer tries to
confirm his characters expectations, but, as an overall summary, he obeys his
own concerns by withdrawing from the typical behaviours of his contemporaries with respect to those writers, as can be seen when using his favourite
source: Ovid.
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
University of Alcalá de Henares
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SOURCES
1
Cf., p. 71-81.
100
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
Caesar. The Gallic War. Ed. & Trans. H. J. Edwards. Loeb Classical Library.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979.
Cicero. Topica. Ed. & Trans. H. M. Hubbell. Vol. II of Cicero’s Works. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1976.
Cicero. De Oratore. Vol. I. Ed. & Trans. E. W. Sutton. Vol. III of Cicero’s
Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1976.
Cicero. Brutus. Ed. & Trans. G. L. Hendrickson. Vol. V of Cicero’s Works.
Loeb Classical Library. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1971.
Cicero. The Verrine Orations. Vol. I & II. Ed. & Trans. H. G. Greenwood. Vol.
VII & VIII of Cicero’s Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978, 1976.
Cicero. Pro Murena. Ed. & Trans. C. MacDonald. Vol. X of Cicero’s Works.
Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1977.
Cicero. Pro Archia Poeta. De Domo Sua. Ed. & Trans. N. H. Watts. Vol. XI of
Cicero’s Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1979.
Cicero. Pro Balbo. Ed. & Trans. R. Gardner. Vol. XIII of Cicero’s Works. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1970.
Cicero. Pro M. Fonteio. Pro M. Marcello. Pro Rege Deiotaro. Ed. & Trans.
N. H. Watts. Vol. XIV of Cicero’s Works. Loeb Classical Library.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979.
Cicero. Philippics. Ed. & Trans. Walter C. A. Ker. Vol. XV of Cicero’s Works.
Loeb Classical Library. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1969.
Cicero. De Officiis. Ed. & Trans. Walter Miller. Vol. XXI of Cicero’s Works.
Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Cicero. Letters to Atticus. Ed. & Trans. E. O. Winstedt. Vol. XXII of Cicero’s
Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1980.
101
José María Gutiérrez Arranz
____________________________________________________________________
Cicero. The Letters to his Friends. Ed. & Trans. W. Glynn Williams. Vol. XXV
of Cicero’s Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979.
Claudian. De Raptu Proserpinae. Ed. & Trans. Maurice Platnauer. Vol. II of
Claudian’s Works. Loeb Classical Library. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1972.
Cornelius Nepos. Miltiades. Themistocles. Alcibiades. Ed. & Trans. John C.
Rolfe. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1984.
Livy. Ab Urbe Condita. Ed. & Trans. B. O. Foster. Vols. II, IV & V of Livy’s
Works. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1967, 1982.
Ovid. The Erotic Poems. The Amores. The Art of Love. Cures for Love. On
Facial Treatment for Ladies. Ed. & Trans. Peter Green. London: Penguin Books, 1982.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Ed. & Trans. Mary M. Innes. London: Penguin Books,
1955.
Ovidi Nasonis. Remedia Amoris. Ed. E. J. Kenney. Scriptorum Classicorum
Bibliotheca Oxoniensis. Oxford: OUP, 1994.
Ovidio Nasón. Metamorfosis. Vol. I. Ed. & Trans. Antonio Ruiz de Elvira. 5th
Ed. Alma Mater: Colección de Autores Griegos y Latinos. Madrid: C.
S. I. C., 1992.
Ovidio Nasón. Metamorfosis. Vol. III. Ed. & Trans. Bartolomé Segura Ramos.
4th Ed. Alma Mater: Colección de Autores Griegos y Latinos. Madrid:
C. S. I. C., 1994.
Plutarch. Lives: Aristeides and Cato. Ed. & Trans. David Sansone. Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1989.
Seneca. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium. Vols. I & III. Ed. & Trans. Richard
M. Gummere. Vol. IV & VI of Seneca’s Works. Loeb Classical Library.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979; London:
William Heinemann Ltd., 1971.
102
The classical and modern concept of auctoritas
____________________________________________________________________
Suetonio Tranquilo. Vida de los Doce Césares. Vol. III. Ed. & Trans. Mariano
Bassols de Climent. Colección Hispánica de Autores Griegos y
Latinos. Barcelona: Ediciones Alma Mater, 1978.
CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Benson, Larry D. ed. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd Ed. Oxford: OUP, 1987.
Cooper, Helen. Chaucer and Ovid: A Question of Authority. > Ovid Renewed.
Ovidian Influences on Literature and Art from the Middle Ages to the
Twentieth Century. Ed. Charles Martindale. Cambridge: C. U. P., 1988.
Erzgräber, Willi. Auctorite and Experience in Chaucer. > Intellectuals and
Writers in Fourteenth-Century Europe. Eds. Piero Boitani & Anna
Torti. The J. A. W. Bennett Memorial Lectures, Perugia, 1984. Tübingen & Cambridge: Gunter Narr Verlag & D. S. Brewer eds., 1986.
Gaffiot, F. Dictionaire Latin Français. Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1934.
Niermeyer, J. F. Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976.
Niermeyer, J. F. Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus. Abbreviationes et Index
Fontium. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976.
Wissowa, Georg. Paulys Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: Alfred Druckenmüller Verlag, 1896.
*†*
103
MOTHERHOOD IN THE WIFE OF BATH
It has been generally assumed that the Wife of Bath was childless, although there are those who contest this assumption, namely Mary Carruthers
in her essay “The Wife of Bath and the painting of the lions”.1 In this essay I
propose to give evidence which proves that Alisoun almost definitely had no
children. Before giving my reasons for viewing her as childless, it is necessary to give a description of the family and to explain how important it was
considered to be in Medieval England. We also need to look at the role of
women within the household and family, the purpose of marriage as well as
views on sex and love. Fertility, pregnancy, childbearing, and child-rearing
also need to be assessed. By taking into account the general views on and
common practices concerning these activities in the Middle Ages, I hope to
show that from the way she talks it was very unlikely that Alisoun was ever a
mother and that she was far from typical of a woman of her age and class. I
shall draw on information given us from the real life autobiography of
Margery Kempe, who was from the same class and era, to show how even a
woman as distainful of sex, professionally active and well travelled as she,
could not avoid fourteen pregnancies. This for me shows that the Wife of
Bath was very untypical of her sex and class for being childless.
At the heart of every English household, was the same basic unit: the
family, in particular the nuclear family. This consisted of the husband, wife,
and their dependent offspring. For a couple belonging to the lower echelons
of society, two or three children would have been typical, while the upper
classes tended to have far more. Take for example Thomas Howard, the second Duke of Norfolk (1443-1524), who had ten children by his first wife and
1
Carruthers, M. (1979) "The Wife of Bath and the painting of the lions" in Feminist
Readings in Middle English Literature - The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect, London:
Routledge, 1994, 49-50.
Alison Buckett Rivera, Selim 6 (1998): 103—116
Motherhood in the Wife of Bath
____________________________________________________________________
thirteen by his second.1 The reasons for this difference lay in social and economic factors. Medcalf states that in the absence of contraception, the fertility of a woman was governed by the age at which she married and the time of
her menopause or death. For all social groups menopause came at roughly
the age of 40, but death often came earlier, with the average expectation of life
standing at around 35 to 40. Furthermore, the rates of infant mortality were
high for all classes, with approximately 30 to 40 per cent of all children dying
before the age of 15. Therefore, one of the variables in determining family size
was the age at marriage.
As it was rare to live with one’s in-laws, a couple who wished to marry
had to be able to set up home independently. This meant they needed to
have sufficient income. Among the upper classes this income was usually
provided by the parents and parents -in-law. The future married couple were
formally endowed by a marriage settlement. This external endowment meant
that the gentry and nobility could marry younger than the lower classes. Men
tended to do so at 22 to 23 years of age and women at 17 or 18.2 Although
other factors will be taken into account later, this early age of marriage helped
to provide women with more childbearing years (provided they lived long
enough).
It is interesting to note that the Wife of Bath was married to her first
husband at the age of twelve but how typical this was remains to be seen. At
first she does not make clear exactly what that first marriage entailed for she
simply says For, lordinges, sith I twelve yeer of age,/ Thonked by God that
is eterne on live,/ Housbondes at chirche dore I have had five-3. Although
child marriages did take place during this era, the settlement of property being
the reason for them, the newly wed couples rarely lived together until they
were in their late teens. Moreover, they were not considered marriages de
facto until sexual intercourse had taken place and it is doubtful, though not
impossible, that Alisoun would have been expected to have sexual relations
with her older husband or whether she was even capable of them due to her
1
Medcalf, S. ( ed.) (1981) The Later Middle Ages, London: Methuen and Co. Ltd.,
230.
2
Ibid. 231.
3
Chaucer, G. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, lines 5-7
105
Alison Buckett Rivera
____________________________________________________________________
being so young.1 What was more common between partners of such a young
age were espousals de futuro, in which the couple were betrothed to each
other in order to cement an alliance between the families of each. What was
always at stake was property, as was the case with the Wife of Bath.
Marriage was totally utilitarian for the chief objective of it was gain, not love
as we understand it today. As Medcalf states:
Money figured so largely because of the economic realities of the
times. Now we assume that wealth will be earned; the late Middle
Ages … assumed it would be inherited. And the vehicle of inheritance was the family, whose central institution was marriage.2
The Wife of Bath belonged to the bourgeoisie, not to the gentry. As she
was lower down the social scale, although not of low birth, she was allowed
more freedom of choice with later marriages. Her first three husbands were
“rich and old” but as she had made her fortune through them she was able to
choose with her last husband, and so married a clerk half her age Which I
took for love, and no richesse (526).
The second highly important reason for getting married was for producing
children to inherit the property belonging to the family and to carry on the
family name. As we have seen, the upper classes tended to marry earlier and
therefore had more childbearing years in which to produce children. In the
case of the Wife of Bath we are told her first three husbands were old and
rich, so it would have stood to reason that they would have been keen to produce heirs. We are not told at what age she married husband number two and
three, but it is probable that at least with her third husband she would have
been at childbearing age even if this was not the case with the first and possibly second one. When she is defending herself for marrying so many times
she actually says:
But wel I woot, expres, witute lie,
God bad for to wexe and multiplie;
That gentil text I well understonde.
Eek wel I woot, he seyde myn housbonde
1
Laslett, P. (1983) The World We Have Lost - Further Explored London: Routledge,
82.
2
Medcalf, S. op.cit. 232.
106
Motherhood in the Wife of Bath
____________________________________________________________________
Sholde lete fader and mooder, and take to me.
But of no nombre mencion made he,
Of bigamie, or of octogamie;
Why sholde men thanne speke of it vileynie? (27-34)
However, no mention of her having children is ever made even though
she gives one of the reasons for marriage as being procreation: God bad for
to wexe and multiplie (28). Were she chaste in her relationships with her
husbands there would be more credence to the assumption that she was
childless. We know she was not chaste for she tells us I graunte it wel, I
have noon envie, / Thogh maidenhede preferre bigamie. / It liketh hem to be
clene, body and goost; / Of myn estaat I nil nat make no boost (95-98). From
this we can deduce that she was sexually active with her husbands.
Although, as already mentioned, in real life she would probably not have
been expected to maintain sexual relations with her husband if she was only
twelve, she does go on to say that she was sexually active with them all:
I shall seye sooth, tho housbondes that I hadde,
As thre of hem were goode, and two were badde.
The thre wee goode men, and riche, and olde;
Unnethe mighte they the statut holde
In which that they were bounden unto me.
Ye woot wel what I meene of this, pardee.
As help me God, I laughe when I thinke
How pitously a night I made hem swinke!
And, by my fey, I tolde of it no stoor.
They had me yeven hir lond and hir tresoor;
Me neded nat do lenger diligence
To winne hir love, or doon hem revernce.
They loved me so well, by God above,
That I ne tolde no deyntee of hir love? (195-208)
Perhaps her first three husbands were impotent, for unnethe mighte they
the statut holde / In which that they were bounden unto me (198-199) and
she goes on to say that she made them work hard at night. Furthermore, she
had become rich once she had married them and so no longer felt the need to
court them. She was only willing to take trouble to provide them pleasure if
she wanted some material gain with which they could provide her.
Here is a good point at which to comment on the position of women in the
household and family in Medieval England. As already mentioned, the family
107
Alison Buckett Rivera
____________________________________________________________________
was the central institution of society. The household was the main unit of
activity and the family and family relationships were the chief channels
through which wealth was transmitted. Within the family it was the husband
who had complete authority. The male was considered superior to the female
and so within marriage the wife was expected to be humble, obedient and
submissive in all things. However, we know that this model did not apply to
the Wife of Bath, for she nagged and manipulated her husbands in order to
get what she wanted. Traditionally a woman was expected to comply with her
husbands sexual demands whether she wanted to or not, whereas we know
that with her first three husbands she only did so when they were willing to
provide her with something in return.
Sexuality also needs to be discussed, for the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and
Tale deal with this topic in detail. A woman was not expected to have a sexuality. In the Christian world, due to interpretations of the Fall of Mankind
and Eve being the cause of it for introducing sin into the world, all women
were expected to atone for the original sin. The major way of doing so was
through childbirth, of which I shall speak in detail later, but also through the
ideal of a woman being pure, virginal and unsexed. Women were feared for
being temptresses and matrimony was not considered to wholly surmount
this. Virginity was the ideal. In the fourth and fifth centuries the cult of exalting the Virgin Mary appeared. She was seen as the new Eve, a virgin protected throughout life from every physical or spiritual contamination. Mary
became the model of behaviour, an ideal unattainable to any other woman.
Therefore, women were expected to follow her example. Sex was for procreation only, not for enjoyment. On the other hand, it is important to point out
that much of the literature written for and about women in this period was
largely the product of a male clerical élite anxious to promote the Church ideal
of celibacy while at the same time troubled by their own feelings about
sexuality, which were then projected onto women.
The Wife of Bath’s attitude, then, is laughably quite the contrary. She
makes no bones about her views on virginity and sex in general. Although it
is not necessarily a pleasure with her first three husbands she does say:
In wyfhod I wol use myn instrument
As frely as my Makere hath it sent.
If I be daungerous, God yeve me sorwe!
108
Motherhood in the Wife of Bath
____________________________________________________________________
Myn housbonde shal it have bothe eve and morwe,
Whan that him list come forth and paye his dette.
An housbonde I wol have, I wol nat lette,
Which shal be bothe my dettour and my thral,
And have his tribulacion withal
Upon his flessh, whil that I am his wyf. (149-157)
These are not the words of a woman who tolerates sex in order to engender children. In fact, other than her comment on God bidding man to wexe
and multiplie (28), she never mentions that the purpose of sex is procreation.
Neither does she view herself as in need of redemption for Eve’s sins. On the
contrary, she enjoys doing the very “crime” Eve is accused of having committed.
Although a woman was expected to be obedient and submissive, which
the above shows Alisoun was not, she was, however, permitted to act as her
husband’s business partner and had to assume responsibility for the conduct
of his affairs when he was away. She was also frequently required to act for
him in a legal capacity. In this sense the Wife of Bath acts in a way that was
typical of a merchant’s wife. Alisoun was a cloth maker in the west of England, which at the time was a highly lucrative trade. She would have been responsible for overseeing the whole process of cloth manufacture; buying the
wool, contracting the labour of the various artisans involved in manufacture,
and sending bales of finished broadcloths to Bristol and London for export.
Many of the women that took part in this entrepreneurial activity in England
in Chaucer’s day were widows, who carried on after their husband’s deaths,
some of them becoming extremely rich.1
Other important factors to be taken into account when considering the evidence that exists to prove whether the Wife was or was not childless are
pregnancy, childbirth and infant feeding practices. Fertility also needs to be
mentioned again as this is affected by infant feeding practices, not only by
age of marriage and the onset of menopause, as Medcalf suggests. Mary Carruthers’s view is that there is not a shred of evidence to support the “fact”
that she is childless. According to her the reason she does not mention any
offspring is that Chaucer intended the text to be about wifehood, not motherhood. She adds that wifehood and motherhood were not linked concepts at
1
Carruthers, op. cit., 24.
109
Alison Buckett Rivera
____________________________________________________________________
the time, as they are today, for wives had little to do with the nurture of their
children. This is partially true and I shall develop this argument further in due
course. However, it is also necessary to make clear the burden most women
of the wealthier classes had to endure due to continual pregnancy, childbirth
and postpartum problems, three “states” that few managed to escape from,
especially those women coming from the class to which Alisoun belonged.
Returning to the comment that a woman of her class would not bring up
her own children; this is true to a certain extent because her offspring would
have been cared for by a wet nurse. This was common practice among
wealthy and also noble families throughout western Europe in the Middle
Ages. Furthermore, from the eleventh century onwards the use of wet nurses
by the wealthy apparently increased. This may well have been one of the reasons for the increased fertility among the European aristocracy which also
dates from this time.1 If a mother did not breastfeed her own child she could
not receive the contraceptive effects that continued, unsupplemented breastfeeding produced. Therefore, she would have become fertile possibly only
weeks after the birth of a child and consequently would have become pregnant again within a short amount of time.2
As infant mortality was so high, the upper classes were probably aware
of, and welcomed, an increased number of children because this would ensure sufficient infants being born, in the hope that at least some or even one
would survive to inherit their parents’ property and business(es). Surely in
the case of the Wife of Bath and her husbands this would also have been
their aim. Yet, she only mentions her own covetousness for her husband’s
goods and her own need for entertainment.
Furthermore, had she been a mother it would be most unusual for her not
to mention this even though the Prologue deals with her husbands and marriage as opposed to pregnancy and parenthood. Even if she did not bring up
her children herself, which admittedly she almost certainly would not have
1
Fildes, V. (1990) Wet Nursing - A History from Antiquity to the Present Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 34.
2
Breastfeeding on demand (with no restrictions on feeding times) and with no food
supplements, produces post-partum amenorrhoea, which acts as a contraceptive because it prevents a new pregnancy or at least lengthens the space of time between
one pregnancy and another. (Jelliffe, D. B. and Jelliffe, P. (1978) Human Milk in the
Modern World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 117-127).
110
Motherhood in the Wife of Bath
____________________________________________________________________
done, she would have spent a considerable amount of time pregnant, especially for the very reason that she would not have been provided with the
contraceptive effects of breastfeeding.
The state of being pregnant and the after effects of childbirth would have
affected her behaviour, health, sense of identity and perhaps her
philosophies on life. Most mothers in the twentieth century would probably
agree that once one has a child she no longer thinks solely of herself, her
enjoyment or her profit because she now has a new life to answer for. It
would be erroneous to suggest that a mother in England in the Middle Ages
should have exactly the same attitude towards parenthood as a woman in the
late twentieth century. Furthermore, the fact that infant mortality was high
and that women of the wealthier classes did not breastfeed their own children
might have caused mothers to have a colder, more distanced attitude towards
their children.1 But the fact remains that primordial maternal feelings had to
have existed, for without them the future of a race is put in jeopardy and for
this I consider that the most callous, self-interested woman would give at
least a minimal reaction to becoming a mother. Furthermore, having children
would have affected her relationships with her husbands and their reactions
to her, but no hint of this is given in the text.
A brief look at pregnancy and childbirth in the Middle Ages reinforces
what I have said above, for both states could not help but have an effect on a
woman’s life. As mentioned previously, women were expected to atone for
Eve’s sin through childbirth. The religious emphasis given to procreation and
the lack of reliable contraception ensured that the lives of many women were
dominated by a cycle of pregnancy and childbirth. There was little chance of
special treatment, except for the restrictive kind, due to superstitions and traditional beliefs dating from the Romans and Greeks, and antenatal care was
almost non-existent. Although certain herbal remedies may have been used to
1
The close mother-child bond which forms when a newborn baby is placed on its
mothers stomach and breastfeeds straight after birth, would not have taken place.
Calostrum, the highly nutritious first milk, present in a mother’s breasts during the
first few days after birth, would not have been given to the child due to beliefs that
it was unclean and dangerous. Had babies been given this, they would have had
more chance of survival, as it contains antibodies which give protection against
many illnesses.
111
Alison Buckett Rivera
____________________________________________________________________
help in pregnancy and childbirth there were also dangerous practices, such
as bleeding, which only served to debilitate the mother.1
So far as diet was concerned, women always fared worse than men. As
the husband was considered the bread-winner and the master of the house,
he always received more than anyone else. Women were served last and
often consumed the worst of what was available and the least. Even pregnant
women received little consideration and this lack of decent nutrition meant
that some mothers were too weak to endure labour and that they gave birth to
under-weight children, many of whom died before or just after birth. If we also
take into account the fact that many women fasted as a religious penance, for
example Margery Kempe, it is easy to see that pregnancy was beset with risks
and suffering that would affect the behaviour of any woman. Yet the Wife of
Bath makes absolutely no mention of anything concerning such experiences.
Although birth was viewed as a natural event and not a case for obstetric
intervention, as it is today, a woman was aware that she could die in childbirth and she often prepared herself for this during pregnancy. Moreover, the
web of superstitious beliefs that a pregnant woman had to contend with
would have filled all but the most strong-minded with fear and trepidation.
The Christian view of childbirth was that pain was the natural punishment for
Eve’s sin, thus attempts to relieve it were often condemned. This is not to say
that childbirth was always a hellish experience in the Middle Ages, for, as in
the twentieth century, different women must have reacted in different ways.
However, due to superstition, religious beliefs, lack of nutrition and hygiene,
a woman risked major problems for herself and offspring during childbirth,
and these risks often resulted in the death of the infant and or the mother.
Only a woman who has not been through childbirth could choose to omit
it from an autobiography. Although Alisoun’s text is not exactly that, it does
talk about her life and the things which she holds dear. I suggest that it is because she never went through any of these major, life changing experiences
that she does not give even the slightest mention to them.
Returning to the subject of infant feeding, it is true that the Wife of Bath
would almost definitely have employed a wet nurse and they would have
1
Carter, J. and Duriez, T. (1986) With Child - Birth Through the Ages Edinburgh:
Mainstream Publishing, 19-20.
112
Motherhood in the Wife of Bath
____________________________________________________________________
shared the same house as each other. This was common practice from the
eleventh century onwards.1 Neither was it only the highest classes that carried out this practice, for in the later Middle Ages it was established practice
even for artisans and small shopkeepers to employ wet nurses. Those
wealthy parents who did put their children out to nurse usually did so quite
close to the child’s home, so that the parents could keep in contact in case of
illness or other problems. For all the above mentioned reasons I cannot agree
with Carruthers in that there is no shred of evidence to prove that the Wife of
Bath was not a mother.
In order to back up further my premise that Alisoun was childless and to
show how very untypical she was of a woman of her age and class in the
Middle Ages, I would like to give the example of Margery Kempe (c.1373 to
c.1438), whose autobiography, the first ever written in English, gives us insights into the lot of a bourgeois woman in this era. Both she and the Wife of
Bath were similar in that they were free to own property, run a business, and
to enter a guild. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale take place while she is
on a pilgrimage, although besides this religious act we are not given any
reason to believe that she is a devout follower of religion. Margery, on the
other hand, is devoutly religious and spends her life in search of spiritual salvation, doing penance by wearing hair shirts, going on pilgrimages as far a
field as Jerusalem, and fasting. Probably one of the major differences between
her and Alisoun is that Margery wants to be chaste and spends many years
trying to persuade her husband to give up having sexual relations with her.
Her autobiography tells us that He would have his will and she obeyed, with
great weeping and sorrowing that she might not live chaste …2 She finally
gets this wish in 1413 when, after she offers to pay his debts, he agrees to let
her take the vow of chastity.3
In Margery’s autobiography much emphasis is placed on her spiritual life
and relatively little is written about her pregnancies and children, with the
1
2
3
Fildes, V. (1990) Wet Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present Oxford: Oxford University Press, 34-44.
Windeatt, B.A. (trans) The Book of Margery Kempe, Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1985, 46.
Delany, S. (1975) "Sexual Economics, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and The Book of
Margery Kempe" in Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature ed., Evans, R.
and Johnson, L., London: Routledge, 1994, 76-78.
113
Alison Buckett Rivera
____________________________________________________________________
exception of the birth of her first child, to which a great deal of importance is
accorded in the first chapter. Even so, it is common knowledge that Margery
was pregnant fourteen times. If all fourteen children were carried full term, she
would have been pregnant for a total of 126 months out of 240 months, or just
over half the time between her twentieth and fortieth birthdays.1
I cite the details above to show that despite her loathing of sex, her spirituality, her pilgrimages and active life as a businesswoman in the textile trade,
Margery was unable to avoid spending a large part of her life pregnant.
Furthermore, we know that her first pregnancy was difficult and the birth
traumatic. She was sick for eight months afterwards and was given to hysteria
and visions, in which she felt herself being pawed at and threatened by
devils.2
Perhaps I should reiterate before comparing Alisoun with Margery, that
the Wife of Bath is a character created by Chaucer. In many ways she does
not come across as real, if by this term we mean someone who is true to life,
credible. There is no doubt that she is also a comical character, who succeeds
in making laugh all those who read her Prologue. However, even taking into
account that she is fictional and comical, perhaps if she had been created by
a woman she would not have been made childless. The example of Margery
Kempe shows us what the reality was for a woman of her class and age in
England in the Middle Ages. Moreover, she spent over twenty childbearing
years of her life married, somewhat less time than Alisoun, yet during that
time she was almost continuously pregnant. The aim of her autobiography
was to talk of her spiritual life, but she could not avoid giving mention, albeit
scarce, to her states of pregnancy. I suggest that if the Wife of Bath had been
a mother, like Margery, she could not have avoided mentioning this fact
somewhere, even though her text was concerned with marriage and not
motherhood. Had this been the case perhaps she would have been a more
mature character and not how Robert J. Meyer views her as:
“an overgrown child - stubborn, self-centred, retentive - innocent
and incapable of the emotional and intellectual sophistication, the
1
Howes, L. (1992) Notes and Documents On the Birth of Margery Kempe’s Last
Child in Modern Philology vol.90 no.2 November 1992, 224, note 12.
2
Evans, R. and Johnson, L. (ed) op. cit., 90-91.
114
Motherhood in the Wife of Bath
____________________________________________________________________
unselfish and understanding, which characterize a mature love relationship.”1
Finally a comment should be made on Alisoun’s last two husbands. Why
she married her fourth husband is unclear from her prologue, but as Carruthers suggests, we may assume it had something to do with “ricchesse”, as
her fifth husband, Jankyn, is the only exception she makes to this rule. We
also know that by the time she is married to husband number four she is financially independent. But it is with her fifth and last husband that she marries for love and to him she gives the “maistrye” of her property. The ups and
downs of this marriage are not what concern us here, but a note on his age is
relevant. She is forty when she marries him and he is twenty. By this stage
she may well have been going through the menopause, as Medcalf explains.
However, Margery Kempe gave birth in her forty first year. Alisoun’s first
four husbands were older than her and it is possible that one or a number of
them were impotent or sterile. On the other hand, it is unlikely that all four of
them would have been. Neither can we rule out the possibility that Alisoun
was infertile and this in fact would probably be the easiest and most logical
explanation if, of course, she had really existed. In the Middle Ages infertility
was equated with lack of grace and consequently manuals and almanacs for
the childless abounded. Despite the constant burden placed on women by
pregnancy and childbirth, due to the fact that redemption was thought to
come through childbirth and also because of the obsession with getting
heirs, the childless woman was considered to be the most disadvantaged.2 In
the case of Alisoun, she comes across as childless, but never as
disadvantaged because of this. In fact, children never seem to have entered
her mind, which for the all the reasons cited above, would have been highly
unlikely in reality.
There also remains the possibility that she had been pregnant on one or
more occasions, but that she became sterile due to a miscarriage or abortion.
The use of contraceptive methods need not be ruled either. Although there
was a dominant set of family practices aimed at producing children the dread
1
Meyer, R. J. "Chaucer’s Tandem Romances: A Generic Approach to the Wife of
Bath’s Tale as Palinode" in The Chaucer Review vol.18, no.3 University Park and
London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 232.
2
Carter, J. and Duriez, T. op.cit. p. 19.
115
Alison Buckett Rivera
____________________________________________________________________
of childbirth and ill health were two reasons why women may have chosen to
control their fertility.1 In fact, McLaren points out that, in Chaucer’s Parson’s
Tale he tells of a woman taking potions, drynkynge venenouse herbes thurgh
which she may not conceive; of using pessaries and suppositories, by
placing certeine material thynges in hire secree places to slee the child; unnatural intercourse, by which man or womman shedeth hire nature in manere
or place ther as a child may not be conceived; and even abortion.2
By looking at what the Wife of Bath says or rather does not say in her
Prologue and also by reviewing the situation of women and particularly those
of Alisoun’s class in the Middle Ages in England, I hope to have shown the
extreme improbability of her ever having had children. Had she been a real
person pregnancy and childbirth, if not the birth of live children, would have
been impossible to avoid for a woman as sexually active as she has informed
us she was. The only possibility remaining to us, besides the unlikelihood of
all her husbands being sterile, is that she herself was.
Alison Buckett Rivera
University of Corunna
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carter, J. & Duriez, T. 1986: With Child - Birth Through the Ages Edinburgh:
Mainstream Publishing.
Chaucer, G. 1951: The Canterbury Tales London: Penguin..
Evans, R. & Johnson, L. 1994: Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature - The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect London: Routledge.
Fildes, V. 1986: Breasts, Bottles and Babies, a history of infant feeding Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
1
McLaren, A. (1990) A History of Contraception - From Antiquity to the Present Day,
Oxford: Blackwell, 115.
2
Chaucer, G. Parson’s Tale, 575-6.
116
Motherhood in the Wife of Bath
____________________________________________________________________
Fildes, V. 1990: Wet Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Howes, L. 1992: Notes and Documents on the Birth of Margery Kempes’s
Last Child. Modern Philology vol. 90 no.2 November.
Jelliffe, D. B. & Jelliffe, P. 1978: Human Milk in the Modern World Oxford:
OUP.
Laslett, P. 1983: The World We Have Lost - Further Explored London:
Routledge.
McLaren, A. 1990: A History of Contraception - From Antiquity to the Present Day Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Medcalf, S. 1981: The Later Middle Ages London: Methuen and Co Ltd.
Meyer, R. J. Chaucer’s Tandem Romances: A Generic Approach to the Wife
of Bath’s Tale as Palinode. The Chaucer Review vol.18, no.3 University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Tigges, W. 1992: “Lat the womman telle hire tale” - a reading of the Wife of
Bath’s Tale. English Studies 1992, 2, pp.97-103.
Windeatt, B. A. trans 1985: The Book of Margery Kempe, Harmondsworth:
Penguin..
Winny, J. ed. 1965: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*†*
117
JOHN OF GAUNT’S INTERVENTION IN SPAIN:
POSSIBLE REPERCUSSIONS FOR
CHAUCER’S LIFE AND POETRY1
There are many Spanish references in The Canterbury Tales about historical events, geographical places and quotations from Spanish authorities.2
Spanish marks can be found not only through explicit allusions but in the
implicit contents of the text, as I will show further on in The House of Fame, in
The Canterbury Tales, and in The Book of the Duchess. Nevertheless, the
importance of the relationship between Chaucer and Spain has traditionally
been overlooked by readers and scholars.
The publication of a short article, “Chaucer en Espagne? (1366)” by
Suzanne Honoré-Duvergé (1955: 9-13) revealing that Chaucer visited Spain
with a safe-conduct granted by the king of Navarre, shed a light on the obscurity of the period from October 1360 to June 1367. But this discovery “has
led to speculation about his knowledge of Spanish literature”3. An interesting
question arises from Benson’s (1991: 795) statement: if Chaucer had a strong
influence from France and Italy, why could not he have any Spanish
influence, considering his stay in Spain?
1
I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to Professor Martin M. Crow for his advice and great interest in this article and his encouragement to continue researching
on Chaucer and Spain.
2
Readers can find more information in: LEON SENDRA, Antonio & SERRANO
REYES, Jesús, “Spanish References in The Canterbury Tales,” SELIM 2 (1992):
106-141.
3
BENSON, Larry D., ed. “Explanatory Notes”, The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edition,
(Oxford, 1991),p. 795. All Chaucer quotations will be from this edition. About the
Spanish Literary influence on Chaucer’s work see Jesús L. Serrano Reyes, Didactismo y Moralismo en Geoffrey Chaucer y Don Juan Manuel: Un Estudio Comparativo Textual, Córdoba: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Córdoba,
1996.
Jesús L. Serrano Reyes, Selim 6 (1998): 117—145
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
It is necessary to know as much as possible about Chaucer’s relationship
with Spain in order to determine the real historical background to show the
minimum conditions for a literary influence.
I propose to clarify some important historical events about the English intervention in Spain (XIV century), focusing on those in which Chaucer may
have been involved, and giving a connection between Chaucer’s texts and
the historical context. The possibility of Chaucer’s stay in Montserrat
(Barcelona) in 1366 and my argument showing that Philippa Chaucer may
have died in Spain (1386-87) may be important enough to bring the reader to a
new reading of Chaucer’s texts. I will contribute new historical information by
means of Pero Lopez de Ayala’s Chronicles,1 avoiding the excessive repetition of the historical background,2 and, in any case, considering the old researches from a new point of view. I will try to demonstrate how Chaucer may
have been involved in the events and how he reflected not only the events
but his attitude through his poetry.
I start from 1366 following a historical linear period. What did Chaucer
visit Spain for? As Baugh (1968: 69) says “We may never know the precise
nature of his mission”. The only real document is the one mentioned above
which has been included by Martin M. Crow and Clair Olson (1966: 64) in
Chaucer Life-Records, and we cannot deduce any clear reason for his journey.
Several possible explanations have been suggested for Chaucer’s
journey. Following Baugh (1968: 56), Suzanne Honoré-Duvergé believes “that
Chaucer may have joined the forces of Trastamara and taken part in the military campaign”. There is a mistake in this opinion and as Crow and Olson
(1966: 65) state:
1
2
All Ayala quotations are from MARTIN, J. L., ed., Pero López de Ayala. Crónicas.
Barcelona: Planeta, 1991.
For general historical background see RUSSELL, P.E. The English Intervention in
Spain and Portugal in the Time of Edward III and Richard II, (Oxford, 1955);
ARMITAGE-SMITH, S., John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon; Duke of Aquitane and Lancaster; Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester; Seneschal of England.
1904; rpt. London: Constable & Co., 1964; GOODMAN, A., John of Gaunt: the
Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1992.
119
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
The sympathy of the English court seems at the time to have been
with the cause of Don Pedro.
Another possibility was offered by Crow and Olson supposing that
Chaucer was a simple pilgrim to the shrine of St. James. Baugh (1968: 56)
refuses both possibilities and about the second one he thinks that:
Travelling with three companions (not separately identified), with
servants, horses, and an amount of luggage that seemed important
enough to be included in the permission, suggest a more official
mission. In view of the war, clearly have chosen to go by way of
Navarre when English pilgrims to Compostella habitually went to
Coruña in Galicia by sea. The purpose of Chaucer’s mission is not
easy to define, and perhaps will never be known with certainty.
This argument is not consistent enough to reject Crow and Olson’s opinion: pilgrims went to Galicia through the “French way”1 and many pilgrims
arrived at Galicia from England by ships, most of the times, in those which
went full of pilgrims to import wine and went back to England in ships to
export wool.2
This is my hypothesis: Chaucer went to Spain to persuade English
knights to abandon Henry of Trastamara because the English military forces
would fight on the side of king Peter. Baugh suggests the same idea but with
no document to support it, and casting doubt on this possibility.
I will give some information about the political situation which surrounded the English intervention to provide the necessary insight to understand my hypothesis. I will expound my hypothesis focusing the interest on
Sir Hugh Calveley, the most important English knight in the “Gran Companye”, during the closest period of time to the date of Chaucer’s safe-conduct.
The Castilian king Peter was an ally of England under the mutual treaty of
22 June 1362, which was ratified by Edward III (February 1, 1363) and by king
1
2
See VAZQUEZ DE PARGA, LACARRA, J. M. & URIA, Peregrinaciones a Santiago, (Madrid, 1948).
See TATE, Brian, El Camino de Santiago, (Barcelona, 1987) and the interesting
book by Wendy R. Childs, Anglo-Castilian trade in the later Middle Ages. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978.
120
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
Peter (September 28, 1364). This political and military alliance forbade English
knights the participation in the forces on the side of Trastamara.
The Companies invaded Castile and Calveley’s most important steps
might be significant to support my hypothesis:
a) December, 1365. du Guesclin and most his forces reached Barcelona
shortly after December 25. Calveley was already there.1
b) February, 1366. it was the middle of February before all were in
Saragossa, including Pedro IV.
c) March, 1366. Early in March Calveley opened the attack by turning
north and following the course of the Ebro, passed through the
southern tip of Navarre, and reached Alfaro in Castilian territory.
When the town refused to surrender he pushed on to Calahorra.
d) March, 1366. By March 16 Trastamara was declared king. On March
26 he was officially crowned at a monastery on the outskirts of
Burgos.
Peter, The Cruel, had fled from Seville to Galicia and finally to Bayonne
asking for the Black Prince’s help. The Anglo-Castilian treaty had already
been invoked2 when king Peter sent his adviser Martín López de Córdoba to
England in November, 1365.3 Baugh (1968: 66) includes in his article how
Edward III sent a letter to Calveley and other English knights on December 6,
1365, addressed to:
Noz cheres & folialx, Johan de Chandos, Visconte de Seint Salveur,
Hughe de Calverle, Nichol de Dagworth, & Willliam de Elmham,
Chivalers.4
1
All these quotations on Calveley’s steps are from Baugh (1968: 55-69).
See GARBATY, T. J., “Chaucer in Spain, 1366: Soldier of Fortune or Agent of the
Crown?”, MLN 5, (1967): 81-87. I am most grateful to Professor Garbáty for his
valuable advice concerning this article.
3
See RADES Y ANDRADA, F., Chrónicas de las tres órdenes y cavallerías de
Santiago, Calatraua y Alcántara. (Toledo, 1572), fol. 29v.
4
Baugh includes part of the letter and give the following reference in the note 21:
“The letter is printed in Foedera (Record ed.), III, ii, p. 779”.
2
121
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
It is clear, as Baugh (1968: 69) states, that the letter “had failed to reach
them in time.” Edward III may have tried other ways to convince “them”. I do
not agree with Baugh’s (1968: 69) final statement “Whether he ever caught up
with them is doubtful.” Was Chaucer successful in his mission? Ayala (J. L.
Martín ed. 1991: 341) answers the question:
… Mosen Hugo de Caureley, que era un caballero inglés con quatrocientos de caballo de su compaña, que tenía consigo de
Inglaterra, partió del rey don Enrique, e fuese para Navarra, por
quanto su señor el Príncipe de Gales venía de la otra parte, e non
podía ser contra el. E el rey don Enrique, como quier que sopo que
el dicho mosén Hugo partía del, e le pudiera facer algund enojo,
non lo quiso facer, teniendo que el dicho caballero facía su debdo
en se ir a servir a su señor el príncipe, que era fijo de su señor el
rey de Inglaterra.1
Ayala shows the arguments which convinced not only Sir Hugh Calveley
but Henry of Trastamara himself because they were the arguments signed in
the Anglo-Castilian treaty of 1362. Chaucer’s success is beyond all doubt.
But Ayala’s Chronicles (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 344) reafirm this success even
more, because Calveley not only abandoned Henry of Trastamara, he took
part in the battle of Najera against him:
De la parte del rey don Pedro fue ordenada la batalla en esta guisa.
Todos vinieron a pie, e en la avanguardia venía el duque de Alencastre, hermano del príncipe, que decían don Juan, e mosén Juan
Chandós, que era condestable de Guiana por el príncipe, e mosén
Raúl Camois, e mosén Hugo de Caureley, e Mosén Oliver, señor de
Clison, e otros muchos caballeros e escuderos de Inglaterra e de
Bretaña.2
1
2
“The knight Hugh Calveley, who was an English knight with four hundred cavalrymen in his company, who came from England, abandoned king Henry, and went to
Navarre because his lord, the prince of Wales came from the other side and he could
not fight against him. And when king Henry knew that this Hugh had left him, and
he might get angry, he did not, considering that the knight did his duty in going to
serve his lord the prince, who was the son of the king of England.”
“On the side of king Peter, the batle was planned as it follows: everyone was on
foot, and the Duke of Lancaster, who was called John, the prince’s brother, was in
the vanguard with the knight John Chandos, who was the military chief of Guiana,
122
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
And some days after the victory of Najera:
Otrosí el príncipe de Gales envió luego al rey de Aragón por mensajero a mosén Hugo de Caureley, un caballero de Inglaterra a
tratar con él sus amistades.1
So, after the battle Sir Hugh Calveley is at the Black Prince’s service as a
reliable person. William McColly (1988: 84) contributes information confirming that Calveley abandoned Henry of Trastamara in spite of his links to
him and his ally Peter IV of Aragon:
To reward Calveley for his role in the defeat of Pedro the Cruel in
1366, Henry of Trastamara gave Calveley the county of Carrion and
the title of Count of Carrion. After Najera (1367), and one more on
the Castilian throne, Pedro confirmed the grant. Calveley was such
an important figure at the Aragonese court that he married an
Aragonese princess, the Doña Constanza.
This fundamental role to keep a latent alliance between the English and
the Aragonese court was not only supported on Calveley’s marriage but in
the Aragonese king’s interest. In 1366, as Suárez Fernández (1970: 444) says,
Peter IV was very attentive with the English leaders:
Las tropas inglesas y francesas indistintamente, comenzaron a
pasar por Cataluña en enero de 1366. Pedro IV hizo objeto de especiales atenciones a los capitanes británicos para conservar un
puente tendido hacia la amistad inglesa.2
Chaucer’s success may have been rewarded as it is clearly reflected in a
document where he is considered “dilectus valectus noster”, and Tout (1929:
384) shows that:
1
2
and Raul Camois, and Sir Hugh Calveley, and Oliver, lord of Clison, and other many
knights and squires from England and Brittany.”
J. L. Martin ed. (1991: 360): “And afterwards the prince of Wales sent Sir Hugh
Calveley, a knight from England, as a messanger to the king of Aragon to treat his
leagues with him.”
The English and French forces started passing through Catalonia in January, 1366.
Peter IV paid special attentions to the British captains to keep an open way to the
English friendship.
123
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
In 1367, and probably earlier, he was yeoman or “valectus” of the
king’s chamber, and afterwards had the higher rank of the squire of
the chamber. It was, however, usual to employ chamber officers on
delicate missions at home and abroad.
Is there any connection between Chaucer’s texts and these historical
events? Where and how are they reflected? I will show two texts: the two
stanzas in The Monk’s Tale about “Petro, glorie of Spayne”, which will be
commented further on, and the two explicit Spanish references in The House
of Fame.1
Whan I was fro thys egle goon,
I gan beholde upon this place.
And certein, or I ferther pace,
I wol yow al the shap devyse
Of hous and site, and al the wyse
How I gan to thys place aprocche
That stood upon so hygh a roche,
Hier stant ther non in Spayne. (1110-1117)
In “The Explanatory Notes” of The Riverside Chaucer (p. 986, n. 1116-17)
we can read that “Baugh (45) suggests the Rock of Gibraltar, but there is no
indication Chaucer went that far south.” This is, certainly, a high rock, but
there is no evidence of the important variety of elements (“castel, tour, pynacles, ymageries, tabernacles, pilers, …”) included in “The Hous of Fame for
to descryve-” (1105) by Chaucer. I believe the “hygh roche” is Montserrat, a
high mountain, 35 kilometres from Barcelona. The following quotation from an
encyclopaedia shows a general parallelism with the description of the “hygh
roche”, (Montserrat):
… las aguas tanto pluviales como procedentes de la fusión de las
nieves, ejercen en dichas grietas su acción química y mecánica, a la
vez erosiva y desnudadora, asurcándoles y ensanchándoles de
continuo, y dando a las rocas esas formas caprichosas y
1
On this matter may be of interest the reading of two papers presented in SELIM
conferences: the first, Antonio León Sendra & Jesús L. Serrano Reyes, “Chaucer
and Montserrat” in Castellón, 1995; the second, Jesús L. Serrano Reyes, “‘Els
Castells Humans’: An Architectural Element in the House of Fame” in VitoriaGasteiz, 1996. Both papers will be published in the forthcoming proceedings.
124
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
fantásticas de columnas y fortalezas, de monstruos y gigantes, de
aves y de fieras, etc. Tales filigranas de escultura, que tanto
sorprenden y admirán a viajeros y turistas son el resultado
combinado de las energías internas y de los agentes destructores
atmosféricos.
Aparte de esta rara y admirable fisonomía externa, presenta en su
interior una estructura caótica y cavernosa semejante a los antros
del Averno.1
There are many rocks in Montserrat which are called, depending on their
shapes, “Bewitched Giant”, “Dead Head” “Flutes”, etc., and caves of saltpetre like the “Virgin Room”, which show the original morphology of the
mountain. Apart from these natural shapes, there are many carvings in some
places of the mountain, for instance, the sculptures on the rocks forming
“Los Misterios”2 and the “Via Cruxis”. All of them constitute part of the devotion place whose heart is the famous Monastery of Montserrat. It was a
Benedictine monastery in the X century. Baugh (1968: 63) informs that Sir
Hugh Calveley was in Barcelona by November 4, 1365, and “on January 1,
1366 Pedro IV feasted all the leaders of the Companies”3 in Barcelona.
Chaucer starts his “Story” in the “Book I” of The House of Fame with this
verse: “Of December the tenthe day” (111). It may have been a real date of
1365 according with the historical data. Edward III sent a letter to the English
leaders on 6 December, 1365. The tenth of December may have been the date
of Chaucer’s departure. The poet says at the end of “Book I”:
Myn eyen to the hevene I caste.
Thoo was I war, lo, at the laste,
That faste be the sonne, as hye
1
Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo Americana. Vol. XXVI. Barcelona: Espasa y Calpe, 1973, p. 780. “Rain waters and the water from melting snow, exert
their chemical and mechanical actions on the mentioned fissures, erosive and bare,
furrowing and expanding them continually, making the rocks those odd and fantastic
shapes of columns and fortresses, of monsters and giants, of birds and wild animals,
etc. Such carving watermarks, which make an intentive impression and admiration to
travellers and tourists, are the result of the internal powers and the destructive
atmosperic agents. Apart from this odd and admirable external face, it has a chaotic
and cavernous structure like the caverns of the Hell.”
2
“The Misteries”.
3
Ayala confirms it. See J. L. Martín ed. (1991: 310-311).
125
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
As henne myghte I with myn yë,
Me thoughte I saugh an egle sore,
But that hit semed moche more
Then I had any egle seyn. (495-501)
There is a parallelism between this eagle and the one included in a Virolay, an unsigned literary work widespread in the XIV century, which begins
“Aygla capdalt volant pus altament”.1 It was dedicated to the Virgin of
Montserrat and appears in every anthology and history of Montserrat. It may
have been a poem to sing. The eagle carries Chaucer to Montserrat, that is,
… to a place
Which that hight The Hous of Fame,
To do the som disport and game,
In som recompensacion
Of labour and devocion. (662-667)
Montserrat is well known as a place of devotion. The pilgrimage dates
from the XII century. People went there to pray to the Virgin of the monastery
(“pel”):
Ther mette I cryinge many oon,
“A larges, larges, hold up wel!
God save the lady of thys pel,” (1308-1310)
When the eagle saw “the Hous of Fame” cried out: “Seynt Julyan, loo,
bon hostel!” (1022),2 wishing Chaucer a good lodging. Hospitality was a
characteristic of Montserrat where there were enough rooms to lodge the pilgrims.
The altitude of the “hygh roche” is emphasised from the beginning: “Betwixen hevene and erthe and see,” (715). People can see from the top of
Montserrat (Saint Jerome’s viewpoint) not only Barcelona and the sea but
Valencia, Aragon, the French Pyrenees and the Balearic Islands:
1
2
“Eagle of high head that flies very high.”
“Seynt Julyan” is the patron saint of hospitality.
126
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
And y doun gan loken thoo,
And beheld feldes and playnes,
And now hilles, and now mountaynes,
Now valeys, now forestes,
And now unnethes grete bestes,
Now ryveres, now citees,
Now tounes, and now grete trees,
Now shippes seyllynge in the see. (896-903)
Chaucer himself says how difficult was to climb the mountain: “to clymbe it
greved me” (1119).1
What did the “Companies” go to Barcelona for? Peter IV used to go to
Montserrat to pray to the Virgin before a campaign. He went in 1343 before
attacking Majorca:
Subió a Montserrat el rey don Pedro IV el Ceremonioso para encomendar a la Virgen, por medio de los monjes y ermitaños, la
empresa de Mallorca.2
It was winter (from November to February) when they were there. Chaucer
reflects it:
But of what congeled matere/ hyt was … (1126-27),
They were almost ofthowed so
That of the lettres oon or two
Was molte away of every name, (1143-45)
I have cited above “la fusión de las nieves”3 describing Montserrat.
Calveley and his companions were feasted in Barcelona by Peter IV. They
prepared the attack against Castile. When the Spanish kings visited their
cities, in the Middle Ages, some ceremonial activities, as Nieto Soria (1993:
1
Montserrat is a mountain with these measurements: 10 kilometres long, 5 kilometres
wide, 26 kilometres perimeter and 1236 metres high.
2
Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europea Americana, 786. “King Peter IV, the
Ceremonious, went up to Montserrat to entrust the campaing of Majorca to the
Virgen by means of the monks and the hermits”.
3
“the melting snows”.
127
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
129-120) shows, were organized, such as “danzas de espadas”1, and these
activities had “una innegable dimensión propagandística”2. Chaucer
describes the stage:
Ther saugh I famous, olde and yonge,
Pipers of the Duche tonge,
To lerne love-dances, sprynges,
Reyes, and these straunge thynges.
Tho saugh I in an other place
Stonden in a large space,
Of hem that maken blody soun
In trumpe, beme, and claryoun;
For in fight and blod-shedynge
Ys used gladly clarionynge.
Ther herde I trumpen Messenus,
Of whom that speketh Virgilius.
There herde I trumpe Joab also,
Theodomas, and other mo;
And alle that used clarion
In Cataloigne and Aragon,
That in her tyme famous were
To lerne, saugh I trumpe there. (1233-1250)
There are many elements in the text which reflects the historical situation:
Peter IV, Henry of Trastamara and Calveley with other free lances were in a
public festivity before attacking Castile. It is well known that the Companies
included Dutch. Chaucer mentions them: “Pipers of the Duche tonge”. The
stage shows another site for the forces “Stonden in a large space” which implies the great number of men ready for the war. All musical instruments are
for war: “For in fight and blod-shedynge”; and, among the famous
“Theodomas, Messenus” and “Joab”, the trumpets from “Cataloigne and
Aragon” are mentioned as “in her time famous”.
Chaucer may have been impressed by that pompous and public festivity
as it is reflected in the description of The House of Fame. He, a good observer, described that show, having his ears and eyes as the best instruments
1
2
“Sword dance”.
“An undeniable propaganda dimension”.
128
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
to perceive it, and the narrator confirms it repeating persistently the verbs
“saugh” and “herde”.
There is an interesting word to research: “Reyes”. The Riverside
Chaucer1 gives this explanation: “Reyes (translating a Dutch word) are ring
dances”. I do not know which Dutch word is, but it is a Spanish word meaning “kings”. It may have been a Spanish dance like the “sardana”, the tipical
Catalan dance, where men and women dancing make a wheel. There is a very
important and significant festivity in Spain called “Reyes”, which is celebrated on 6 January. Many churches included the performance “Officium
Stellae” in the night offices, in “ Reyes”, in the Middle Ages.
And Chaucer continues describing the feast with “jugelours, magiciens,
tragetours, Phitonesess, charmeresess, wicches, sorceresses, exorsisacions,
fumygacions …” (1259-1264). It is well known that Peter IV, the host, was
called “El Ceremonioso”2 and that he loved not only Literature but Alchemy
and Astrology.
This is just a bit example of the many parallelisms to support this hypothesis but there is a short space in this article to expound the whole comparative analysis.3
Chaucer may have taken Edward III’s letter to Calveley or not. His safeconduct from 22 February to 24 May, by Charles II of Navarre, implies just the
failure of the English king’s letter to make Calveley and other English knights
abandon Henry of Trastamara. Goodman (1992: 46) narrates how:
In January 1367 Carlos allied with Enrique of Trastamara and
closed the Pyrenean passes to the Black Prince. At the end of January the latter sent Gaunt to meet Carlos at St Jean Pied de Port
and to scort him to a conference with the prince and Pedro at
Peyrehorade. There the king one more changed sides and the terms
for an alliance were reaffirmed. Setting out in mid-February, the
army struggled through snow-covered passes till they reached the
shelter of Roncesvalles.
1
“Explanatory Notes”, 986.
“The Ceremonious”. It is very significant according with the description of the ceremony.
3
I will expound this hypothesis in forthcoming articles.
2
129
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
Chaucer was not of the party. He was probably trying to follow Calveley
and his English companions. Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 341) shows how
while Henry of Trastamara was in Haro, “ordenando sus gentes para la
batalla”1, Sir Hugh Calveley abandoned him.
This conflict was the origin of John of Gaunt’s claim to the throne of
Castile. It is necessary or at least highly desirable to give a short explanation.
The Duke of Lancaster, who had fought at Najera (1367), would marry Constance of Castile, Peter’s daughter. This policy of marriage was suggested by
Sir Guichard D’Angle as Braddy (1935: 77) points out:
Moreover, he was instructed with and succeded in the
negotiations for the marriage alliance. Afterwards, he was present
when the nuptials of the Duke and Constance were solemnized at
Rochefort.
Shortly after this marriage, the Duke of Lancaster claimed the crown of
Castile and Leon. The process of this claim lasted sixteen years. The history
of this period of time is included in Ayala’s Chronicles.
I think that from the beginning the idea of no success was quite clear for
the Duke of Lancaster. He tried to get as much as possible from this conflict.
There were two important interests: The Duchess Constance wanted to
avenge the murder of her father, and the Duke of Lancaster wanted to recover
what his father-in-law did not pay. But the intensity of the claim increased
depending on the real possibility of a victory. So there were no important acts
until 1386 when Portugal gave the Duke of Lancaster the opportunity of
fighting together against Castile. In 1373, as Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 466)
shows, the Duke of Lancaster was claiming not the crown but the price of it:
el rey don Carlos de Navarra vino al rey don Enrique a Madrid, e
fabló con él, que el rey de Inglaterra e el príncipe de Gales serían
sus amigos, e que se tirase de la liga del rey de Francia, e que el rey
de Inglaterra e el príncipe dexarían la guerra que avían con él, e non
ayudaría a las fijas del rey don Pedro que estaban en Inglaterra; e
para esto el rey don Enrique diese al príncipe de Gales alguna suma
de dineros por la debda que le debía el rey don Pedro de los gajes
que ovieron de aver él e los otros señores e gentes de armas, los
1
“Preparing his forces for the battle.”
130
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
quales él pagara por venir con el rey don Pedro a Castilla. E que
faciendo el rey don Enrique esto, el príncipe dexaría todas las otras
demandas del regno de Castilla, e así lo faría el duque de
Alencastre, que era casado con doña Constanza, fija del rey don
Pedro.1
Henry of Trastamara did not pay any attention to this blackmail.
Eek Plato seith, whoso kan hym rede, the wordes moote be cosyn
to the dede. (A 741-742)
In 1374, Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 475) informs that Henry of
Trastamara had news about the Duke of Lancaster’s preparations to invade
Castile from Aquitanie:
e llamábase el dicho duque de Alencastre rey de Castilla e de León,
e traía armas de castillos e de leones.2
“this kyng” (1314) as he was called at the end of The Book of the Duchess is
an interesting example of propaganda at that age. This time, as in 1381 when
the Duke of Cambridge (“mosén Aymón”),3 tried it once again, the results
were the same: the loss of many men obliged them to retreat before fighting.
In 1385, following Ayala’s Chronicles (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 607), the king
of Portugal gave the Duke of Lancaster the last chance of getting what he
wanted long ago:
el maestre Davis, que se llamaba rey de Portogal, avía enviado
mensajeros a Inglaterra, especialmente al duque de Alencastre, …
1
“King Charles of Navarre met king Henry in Madrid, and he talked with him that the
king of England and the prince of Wales would be his allies and he should leave the
agreement with the king of France and then the king of England and the prince
would leave the war against him, and they would not help the daughters of king Peter, who were in England, in exchange for some amount of money for the prince of
Wales because of the debt which king Peter had contracted with him and other
knights who were paid to come with king Peter of Castile. And if king Henry did so,
the prince would give up to the other claims of the kingdom of Castile, and the
Duke of Lancaster, who was married to Constance, king Peter’s daughter, would do
the same.”
2
“ and this Duke of Lancaster was called king of Castile and Leon, and he brought
coats of arms of castles and lions.”
3
He had married to Elizabeth, Constance’s little sister.
131
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
por los cuales le facía saber cómo el rey de Castilla fuera desbaratado, e avía perdido muchas gentes suyas de las mejores que
en el regno de Castilla avía, e que agora tenía tiempo de se venir el
dicho duque para Castilla.1
On the other hand, the results of the Parliament of 1385 in England may
have helped Gaunt to decide as is reflected in Palmer’s (1971: 480) article:
There is something equally curious about the fact that no grant
was made to John of Gaunt. He was the only one of the king’s
uncles who did not benefit from his nephew’s liberality at this
time.”
Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 614) narrates how the Duke arrived at Galicia
on July 25, 1386, with his family:
Dende a pocos días llegáronle nuevas al maestre Davis cómo el
duque de Alencastre era aportado con pieza de navíos e de gentes
en la villa de la Coruña, que es en Galicia, día de Santiago, e cómo
tomara y algunas galeas que falló del rey de Castilla, e que la gente
que el dicho duque traía eran mil e quinientas lanzas, e otros tantos
archeros, e todo de muy buena gente. E traía consigo su mu jer
doña Constanza, que era fija del rey don Pedro, e una fija que avía
della, que decían doña Catalina. E traía otras dos fijas que el duque
oviera primero de otra mujer con quien fuera casado antes, fija de
otro duque de Alencastre e conde de Dervi que fuera antes que
dél, e a la mayor decían doña Phelipa, la cual casó entonce con el
maestre Davis que se llamaba rey de Portugal, segund adelante
diremos, e a la otra decían doña Isabel, la cual casó entonce con un
caballero que venía con el duque, que decían mosén Juan de
Holanda, que fuera hijo de la princesa e de mosén Thomas de
Holanda, e era entonce mosén Juan de Holanda en esa cabalgada,
e el duque de Alencastre fízole su condestable.2
1
“… the grand master Davis, who was called king of Portugal, had sent messengers to
England, especially to the Duke of Lancaster, to communicate how the king of
Castile had been defeated and had lost many soldiers, the best ones in the kingdom
of Castile, and how this Duke would have the chance to come to Castile.”
2
“The grand master Davis had news few days ago of how the Duke of Lancaster had
arrived with ships and military men at the town of La Coruña, which is in Galice,
the day of St. James, and how he took some ships of the king of Castile, and the
militarymen were 1500 lances and a like number of archers and all of them were
132
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
Ayala gives important information: John of Gaunt’s wife and his daughters went with him. One was Catherine, Constance’s daughter, and the others
were Blanche’s daughters.
As is well known, the Duke of Lancaster granted a pension of ten pounds
a year to Chaucer’s wife Philippa, for her services to his wife Constance in
August 1372. It was when they were just married. If Philippa was in Constance’s service, she ought to be in her service in Galicia in 1386. Constance’s husband’s daughters were to marry important men and her own
daughter Catherine would marry Henry III of Castile. Constance’s need of
household chores might be important enough to get rid of Philippa, who was
very well paid and highly esteemed.1
The Duke of Lancaster and the king of Portugal, as Ayala (J. L. Martín ed.
1991: 616) shows:
acordaron que pasado el invierno deste año, luego al comienzo del
verano siguiente entrasen en Castilla con todo su poder. E de allí
adelante cada uno comenzó a reparar sus gentes, e se apercivía
para aquel tiempo. Pero en este medio ovo en Galicia mortandad
grande en los ingleses, en tal guisa, que los mas e las mejores capitanes que el dicho duque de Alencastre avía traido consigo
murieron allí, e otros muchos de los archeros e gentes de armas.2
1
2
good. And he brought with him his wife Constance, who was the daughter of king
Peter and a daughter who had been born of her, who was called Catherine, and he
brought other two daughters who the Duke had of another woman he married before, who was daughter of another Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Derby, the elder
was called Philippa, who married the grand master of Davis, who was called king of
Portugal, as further on we tell, and the other daughter was called Elisabeth, who
married then a knight who come with the Duke, who was called John of Holland,
who was son of the princess and Thomas of Holland, because the Duke of Lancaster made him his military chief.”
On March 19 1386 she was admitted to the fraternity of Lincoln Cathedral, a custom for the royal family.
“They decided that after the winter of that year at the beginning of the next year
they would enter Castile with all their power. From that moment they began to prepare their troops for that time. But in those days a high number of victims
happened among the English, so that the greatest and best captains who were
brought by the Duke Lancaster, died there, and many other archers and military
men.”
133
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
They would be in Galicia from July 25 1386 until the next summer. But
instead of increasing their power making preparations for the attack they were
defeated, before fighting, by the worst enemy: “pestilence”. So they did not
wait until the summer, and in March 1387 they invaded Castile. Ayala (J. L.
Martín ed. 1991: 627) narrates the situation:
Después que entró en Castilla, siempre ovo grand mortandad en
sus compañas, en guisa que perdió muchas gentes de las suyas; e
segund se sopo por cierto, morieron trescientos caballeros e
escuderos, e uchos archeros e otras gentes.1
Philippa Chaucer might be among ‘otras gentes’ checking this event with
Martin Crow and Virginia Leland’s (1991: xix) information:
Philippa Chaucer, to whom he had been married for at least twentyone years, disappeared from the records after 18 June 1387 and is
presumed to have died.
If Chaucer married Philippa in 1366, (the same year he was in Spain), he
became a widower when Philippa Chaucer died in Spain in 1386-1387. So, she
probably died in Spain of “pestilence”. It may have had very negative
repercussions for Chaucer.
The Duke of Lancaster and the king of Portugal could not stand mo re
than two months in Castile from March 1387, as Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991:
628) narrates:
E el tiempo que andovieron por Castilla estas compañas pudo ser
fasta dos meses poco más o menos.2
They knew that two thousand French soldiers were near them and they
went back to Portugal. They stayed there until, at least, the end of 1387. The
king of Castile, John I, sent ambassadors to Troncoso, a village in Portugal,
where John of Gaunt was, and he accepted the king of Castile’s proposals:
1
“After entering Castile, there was great mortality in his company, so that he lost
many of his people, and as it was well known, three hundred knights and squires
and many archers and other people.”
2
“And they stayed over Castile about two months.”
134
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
his daughter Catherine would married the king’s heir, Henry, and he and his
forces would leave Portugal and would go to Bayonne.
May Chaucer have been in Spain again? (1386-1388). It may not be a mere
coincidence that, after twelve years, he left the customs and the free rent
house in Algate. It is true that his patron had less power being in Spain, but it
is not less true that Chaucer might be necessary. Negotiations between the
Duke of Lancaster and the king of Portugal had just started on arriving at
Galicia. Moreover, before invading Castile in March 1387 Ayala (J. L. Martín
1991: 625) informs that
el duque envió un caballero que decían mosén Tomás de Persy1 al
rey de Castilla, e allí se trató el casamiento del infante don Enrique,
fijo del rey don Juan, con doña Catalina, fija del duque de
Alencastre e de doña Constanza, su mujer.2
John of Gaunt, as I have already mentioned, had in mind the idea of a negotiation to get money. So, diplomacy was more effective and fruitful than
war. In this case diplomatic servants were mo re essential even than soldiers.
War was useful to press, it was just a token on the chessboard. Ayala (J.L.
Martín ed. 1991: 615) shows how before Thomas Percy was sent to the king
of Castile, this king had sent his ambassador, secretly, to the Duke of Lancaster:
le dixo el dicho prior al duque de Alencastre secretamente3, que la
razón porque él más viniera a él era que el rey don Juan de Castilla
le enviaba decir que el duque non avía más de una fija de su mujer
doña Constanza, fija del rey don Pedro, que llamaban doña
Catalina, a que el rey don Juan avía un fijo, e que se ficiese
casamiento dellos e serían herederos de los regnos de Castilla e de
1
This was one of Chaucer’s friends who took part in the English intervention in
Spain. He was fighting in Galicia in 1385, probably preparing the Duke of Lancaster’s arrival on July 25, 1386 (St. James’ day): “fue en 1385 tomada por los ingleses
bajo el mando de Sir Thomas Percy, la villa de Rivadavia”. Amador de los Ríos,
Historia Social, Política y Religiosa de los Judios de España y Portugal, II (Madrid,
1984), 330, n. 3. (“Rivadavia village was taken by the English troops in 1385 under
the command of Sir Thomas Percy”)
2
“The Duke sent a knight, who was called Thomas Percy, to the king of Castile, and
there they treated the marriage of the infant Henry, the son of king John, with
Catherine, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster and Constance, his wife.”
3
“secretamente” shows John of Gaunt’s diplomatic strategy.
135
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
León, e cesaría esta quistion e guerra. E el duque lo oyó de buen
talante e plógole 1 dello.2
Two key dates can help to support the suspicion of Chaucer’s stay in
Spain (1366-1387?): In May of 1387, as Robinson (1957: 1026) refers, his royal
annuity was transferred to another person.
The transfer was made at Chaucer’s request, so that is possible
that he sold it for a sum of ready cash - a rather more drastic way of
raising money than borrowing on one’s life insurance, but not entirely dissimilar.
About May of 1387 the king of Portugal and the Duke of Lancaster left
Castile because of “pestilence”. Perhaps Chaucer needed money to make a
doctor rich as he wrote in the General Prologue: “He kepte that he wan in
pestilence” (I- 442). We know, through Suárez Fernández (1970: 469) that
between March and May:
Una parte de las fuerzas, mandadas por sir John Holland, regresó a
Gascuña con sorprendente salvoconducto de Juan I para atravesar
Castilla.3
The second key date is 5 July 1387 when he was given a safe-conduct to
accompany his friend William Beauchamp to Calais. He may have gone to
meet his patron who travelled from the port of Lisbon to Bayonne. If the
records about his wife had disappeared after 18 June 1387 and she was dead,
was this travel concerned it?
In any case, if Chaucer did not help his patron from the Spanish ground,
he did from his poetry. There are two books where we can find Chaucer’s attitude in defence of his patron’s claim: The Canterbury Tales and The Book
1
“plógole” reafirms what I have said in the preceding note.
“this prior said to the Duke of Lancaster secretly that the reason for which he had
come to him was that king John of Castile had sent him to say that the Duke had
only one daughter of his wife Constance, the daughter of king Peter, who was called
Catherine and that king John had a son and if the they married they would be heirs
of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, and this affair and this war would be stopped.
The Duke listened in a good mood and was pleased with this.”
3
“Part of the forces, under the command of Sir John Holland, went back to Gascony
with a surprising safe-conduct of John I to pass through Castile.”
2
136
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
of the Duchess. Both Chaucer’s works show how the author upholds the
Duke of Lancaster’s interests. There are two parts in each one which can be
considered as speculations because of the vagueness and the many possible
interpretations. These are the cases of The Tale of Melibee and a part about
hunting in The Book of the Duchess. The explicit references defending his
patron’s claim are represented by the stanzas about King Peter, in The
Monk’s Tale and the last part of The Book of the Duchess (1311-1323).
I am going to start commenting The Tale of Melibee and its possible his torical connections to the Duke of Lancaster’s intervention in Spain with
Manly and Edith Ricket’s (1940: 371-72) words:
Undoubtedly the work was popular, not merely because of its
proverbs but also because the situation discussed was a not uncommon experience in the Middle Ages.
I reject, as Lawrence (1940) does, Hotson’s (1967) interpretation considering the tale as a political tract to dissuade John of Gaunt from invading
Castile in 1386. The Black Death and the two thousand French soldiers were,
as I have mentioned above, enough to convince him. Nevertheless, Stiwell’s
(1944: 434) opinion about the “vagueness of the Melibeus as an allegorical
figure” can be changed into a certainty when some historical events and circumstances are supported by Chaucer’s text. So, some of these connections
can lead us to think that The Tale of Melibee was written as a consequence
of the war against France and Spain at that age. Chaucer’s text was not
created to teach or to advise John of Gaunt, Chaucer’s patron and his actions
may have been Chaucer’s source of inspiration. The Hundred Years’ War
was long enough to apply any interpretation from The Tale of Melibee, as
Stiwell (1944: 436) shows:
English foreign policy in the 1380’s and ‘90’s resolved itself into
disagreement between aggressionists and non-aggressionists.
It might be more probable that Chaucer reflected in his poetry those
events closer to him. Hence his patron’s intention and actions were connected to Spain from the battle of Najera in 1367, and his claim of Castile from
1372 to 1388, it is not a wild deduction that a tale such as this one can be
interpreted through the point of view of the Duke of Lancaster’s intervention
137
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
in Spain. John of Gaunt learnt by experience the difficult theme of peace
versus war. After the truce of 1375 in France, everybody held him responsible
for the disaster because England lost many territories.
The Duke of Lancaster’s trajectory in the intervention is a succession of
failed attempts; he gets money and his daughter’s marriage.
When he arrived at Galicia on August 25 1386 “He hasketh wel that wisely
kan abyde “ (VII, 1054). So he decided to play the role of Melibee and
followed “Prudence”: The king of Portugal and he would wait until the next
March, 1387 to begin the attack. But why did not he invade Spain before?
Because, perhaps, someone advised him:
For al be it so that ye be myghty and riche, certes ye ne been but
allone, / for certes ye ne han no child but a doghter, / ne ye ne han
bretheren, ne cosyns germayn ne noon other neigh kynrede / …
But thyne enemys been there, and they han manie children,
betheren, cosysns and oother my kynrede. (VII, 1365-1372)
As “it is a woodnesse a man to stryve with a strengen1 or a moore myghty
man than he is hymself” (VII, 1481). The Duke of Lancaster gave up the
crown of Castile. And his counsellors may have advised him: “if thou hast
myght to doon a thyng of which thou most repente, it is bettre ‘nay’ than
‘ye’” (VII, 1218). And “The dissensioun bigynneth by another man, and the
reconsilyng bygynneth by thyself” (VII, 1691). This can show easily how he
made negotiations secretly with the king of Castile before invading Castile
through Benavente and how quickly they went back to Portugal. So, the
Duke of Lancaster was a good Melibeus and his “wounded doghter” (his inheritance and heir or his wisdom for military conflicts) would recover from her
wounds.
The Book of the Duchess shows another text where Chaucer upholds his
patron’s claim. Considering the possible date of composition in 1374 can help
to understand the meaning of Chaucer’s work. But there are not any
documents to demonstrate the real date. Although some scholars, among
them Condren (1971 & 1975), propose 1376 date for the composition, there
some significant events which can lead us to think of 1374 as a proper date.
1
“Pestilence”: two thousand French soldiers and the Castilian forces were a “peril”.
138
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
Condren sees the eight-years sickness (30-43) as a period of grief after
Blanche’s death, but this period of time could be considered as a bad period
for his own marriage (1366). Then we have 1374 as the date for composition.
Besides, as I have already mentioned, there are some other important events
which are not speculations. On 13 June 1374 John of Gaunt granted Chaucer
with ten pounds “in consideration of the services rendered by Chaucer to the
grantor.” The same year, as Crow and Leland (1991: xv) show:
King Edward granted the poet a gallon pitcher of wine daily for life.
The wine, it is suggested, may have been the reward for a poem
presented to the king during the festivities.
On 10 May 1374 Chaucer obtained a free house rent in Algate. On 18 June
1374 the Duke of Lancaster ordered an alabaster tomb for Blance. It was a
great year for remembering Blanche. In 1373 we have seen how the king of
Castile received menaces from the Duke of Lancaster. And it is in 1374 when
he considered that “talking is not the same as actually doing”, and “e
llamábase el dicho duque de Alencastre rey de Castilla e de León, e traía
armas de castillos y de leones”, as Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 475) narrates.
It is clear that John of Gaunt was called “king of Castile” by his partisans as
Ayala shows. But what is more interesting and important is that Chaucer calls
him “This Kyng” (1314) at the end of The Book of the Duchess. It is at the
end of the book where there more biographical elements of John of Gaunt.1
Chaucer is clearly defending his patron’s interests. Following this important
mention, a necessary question appears: If Chaucer calls him “a man in blak”
during the poem and he calls him “kyng” only once at the end, is there any
latent background in the book which led Chaucer to conclude that “a man in
blak” was a “kyng”? Certanly, I think that this content exists. I consider the
hunting as an allegory of John’s of Gaunt’s attempt to invade Spain at that
time (1374).
The hunting starts being Chaucer at home (England) after describing war
scenes of Troya and the Le Roman de la Rose. Then he went out (out of
England, Aquitanie). The dogs (soldiers) and the hunters (knights) got ready.
The “hert” (the crown of Castile) escaped and the hunting is stopped
1
“long castel” (1318) means “Lancaster”; “Seynt Johan” (1319) means “St. John’s
day”; “ryche hil” (1319) means “Earl of Richmond”.
139
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
because of the “defaute” of a dog (John of Gaunt lost many soldiers in
Aquitanie). Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 476) supports this interpretation:
Pero luego sopo que el duque de Alencastre non venía a Castilla,
antes por el grand trabajo que pasaron en Francia él e sus gentes,
llegados a Burdeos, donde se iban para Inglaterra.1
“With that me thoughte that this kyng / Gan homwarde for to
ryde.” (VII, 1314-1315).
And finally, there is another text in which Chaucer defends his patron’s
interest explicitly. Chaucer wrote two stanzas in The Monk’s Tale about
“Petro, glorie of Spayne”. I am not going to pay attention to the possible
sources of Chaucer’s story. It may have been Sir Guichard D’Angle as it is
suggested by Braddy (1935), the Duchess Constance2 or one of her attendants. What I consider really interesting is the content and Chaucer’s
attitude and intention on writing the two stanzas:
O noble, o worthy Petro, glorie of Spayne,
Whom fortune heeld so heighe in magestee,
Wel oghten men thy pitious deeth complayne!
Out of thy land thy brother made thee flee;
And after, at a sege, by subtiltee,
Thow were bitraysed and lad unto his tente,
Where as he with his owene hand slow thee,
Succedynge in thy regne and in thy rente.
The feeld of snow, with th’egle of blak therinne,
Caught with the lymerod coloured as the glede,
He brew this cursednesse and al this synne.
The wikked nest was werkere of this nede;
Noght Charles Olyuer, that took ay hede
Of trouthe and honour, but of Armorike
Genylon-Olyuer, corrupt for meede,
1
“But later on he knew that the Duke of Lancaster did not come to Spain because of
the great difficulties that they had in France, they had arrived to Bourdeaux from
where they would leave to England.”
2
This possibility apart from Skeat is suggested by Henry Savage, “Chaucer and the
‘Pitous Deeth’of ‘Petro, Glorie of Spayne’”, Speculum 24 (1949): 357-375.
140
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
Broghte this worthy kyng in swich a brike. (VII, 2375-2398)
Both French traitors, Duguesclin and his nephew Oliver of Mauny were
well known at that time because of their tricks. When the king of Navarre,
Charles II, The Bad, had made an agreement with Peter, The Cruel, and the
Black Prince to let them pass through his territory in 1367 and fight on their
side, he deceived them with Oliver of Mauny’s help. It is not necessary to
support that D’Angle was Chaucer’s source, taking into account that his reasons to hate Duguesqlin because he and Oliver were quite hated by English.
Chaucer was worried about a possible misattribution: “Noght Charles
Olyuer” 1. Why did Chaucer dedicate one of the two stanzas to the two
traitors? Because he was interested in showing that his patron’s father-in-law
was murdered in 1369. It was not fair play. He was “bytraysed”. The rights of
“thy regne” and “thy rente” had been got by means of treachery and an
murder.
Chaucer’s first line is very difficult to be shared by historians or even by
his contemporaries.2 Chaucer used “noble”, “worthy” and “glorie” because
he may have written the stanzas from 1369 (the king’s death) and Catherine’s
wedding in 1388. During this period Chaucer wrote these stanzas not only in
favour of the Duchess Constance’s feeling but to defend his patron’s claim.
If there were two versions of the stanzas, one containing “thy bastard brother
made thee flee” and the other without “bastard”, I agree with Savage’s (1949:
364) opinion that
the bastard version therefore, must have been written at some time
earlier than 1386, when there was no need to conciliate the usurping house of Trastamara.
1
2
This knight was very famous. He took part in the battle of Najera.
So much is this the case that even the Black Prince did not have a high regard for
Peter, The Cruel, after the battle of Najera, in moments of celebration and victory:
“… luego que la batalla fue vencida, aquel día, e dende adelante siempre ovo entre el
rey don Pedro e el príncipe poca avenencia.” LOPEZ DE AYALA, Pero (J. L.
Martín ed. 1991: 365). (“After the battle was won, that day, and in future, there
was a little agreement between king Peter and the prince”). The fundamental cause
was Peter’s cruelty.
141
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
But, in my opinion, Chaucer might be aware of the negotiations between
John of Gaunt and the king of Castile in 1386. There are two reasons for this
suggestion: First, Chaucer’s friend Thomas of Percy was sent to reach
agreement about the marriage between Catherine and Henry III. On the second place, Chaucer omitted “bastard”, but he shows Peter as a victim and his
brother as a murder. “Petro” is only related to receptive clauses (“Thow were
bitraysed and lad”), he is not an actor but a beneficiary of two opposite results: “magestee” and “deeth”. The actors of these results are “fortune” and
“he” (his brother). However, his brother is the actor-subject of the verbs:
“made” (“thy broher”) and “slow” (“he”).1 These two factors lead to think
that the possible date of composition was 1386-1387: from the negotiations to
the agreement in 1388. It is very significant that both parts in the negotiations, as Ayala tells in his Chronicles, defended the genealogical tree, as
rightful and legal to become king of Castile. Within this debate, in 1386, the
bishop John of Aquis, following Ayala (J. L. Martín ed. 1991: 623), defended
the Duchess Constance’s right, among other with these words:
Otrosí dice que el dicho rey don Alfonso casó una su fija
bastarda, que decían doña Beatriz …2
He tried to demonstrate that Henry of Trastamara was Peter’s bastard
brother. But after this discussion Thomas of Percy was sent to the king of
Castile. Ayala does not tell any more about the results, but in 1387, after the
Duke of Lancaster’s retreat to Portugal, John I of Castile sent ambassadors to
Troncoso (a village in Portugal) and John of Gaunt accepted the conditions:
he would leave Portugal and would go to Bayonne where they would reach
agreement about the wedding of their heirs and the amount of money that the
Duke of Lancaster would receive. It seems that in this interval of time Chaucer
may have given up to write “bastard”, according with his patron’s policy.
1
2
An interesting analysis for these two stanzas could be made, in more detail, using
Halliday’s systemic analysis, but it should be too long. Readers interested in this
systemic linguistics approach can read the basic book: HALLIDAY, M. A. K., An
Introduction to Functional Grammar. (London, 1985), and an example of this analysis in Jesús L. Serrano Reyes, “Spanish Modesty in the Canterbury Tales:
Chaucer and Don Juan Manuel”, SELIM 5, 29-45.
The word underlined is mine. (“That king Alphonsus married a bastard daughter
who was called Beatrice.”)
142
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
According with Savage (1949: 623), “Chaucer was sensitive to changing
winds at court.”
Moreover, there are some details in the text that reveal Chaucer’s defence
of his patron’s interest. Seemingly, John of Gaunt claimed the crow of Castile
but what he was conscious of being able to get was money and a little more.
Henry of Trastamara is accused of usurper (“out of the land thy brother
made thee flee”, 2378), murder (“where as he with his owene hand slow thee”,
2381), and thief (“succedynge in the regne and in thy rente”, 2382). It is
noticeable that Chaucer wrote “in thy regne” and “in thy rente” and not “in
the regne” and “in the rente”. The possessive is very eloquent: he was meaning that “regne” and “rente” were Peter’s, and that was to say John of Gaunt’s. The use of “rente” is a redundancy in those historical circumstances: to
have a kingdom implied to have a rent. Chaucer shows his patron’s real interest by means of this redundancy.
The long and important English intervention in Spain during the XIV
century and one document showing that Chaucer visited Spain in 1366
should lead Chaucerians to research the presence of Spain in both Chaucer’s
life and work.
Jesús Luis Serrano Reyes
University of Córdoba
REFERENCES
Armitage-Smith, S. 1964: John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon; Duke of
Aquitane and Lancaster; Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester;
Seneschal of England. Constable & Co. London.
Baugh, A. C. 1968: The Background of Chaucer’s Mission to Spain, Chaucer
und Seine Zeit. Tübinggen: 55-69.
Braddy, H. 1935: The two Petros in the ‘Monkes Tale’, Publication of the
Modern Language Association 50, 69-80.
143
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
Benson, L. D. ed. 1991: The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edition. OUP, Oxford.
Childs, W. R. 1978: Anglo-Castilian trade in the later Middle Ages. Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Crow, M. M. & V. Leland 1991: Chaucer’s Life in The Riverside Chaucer.
Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edition. OUP., Oxford, xi-xxii.
Crow, M. M. & C. Olson eds. 1966: Chaucer Life-Records. Clarendon Press,
Oxford.
Condren E. 1971: The Historical Context of the Book of the Duchess: A New
Hypothesis, The Chaucer Review 5, 195-212.
Condren E. 1975: Of Deaths and Duchesses and Scholars Coughing in Ink,
The Chaucer Review 10, 87-95.
Espasa y Calpe ed. 1973: Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo Americana. Vol. XXVI. Barcelona.
Garbaty, T. J. 1967: Chaucer in Spain, 1366: Soldier of Fortune or Agent of the
Crown?, Modern Language Notes 5, 81-87.
Goodman, A. 1992: John of Gaunt: the Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe. St. Martin’s Press, New York.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1985: An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Edward
Arnold, London.
Honore-Duverge, S. 1955: Chaucer en Espagne? (1366). Recueil de Travaux
offert a’& M. Clovis Brunel Mémories et Documents Publiés par la
Societé de lÉcole des Chartes, nº XII, vol ii. Paris, 9-13.
Hotson, J. L. 1967: The Tale of Melibeus and John of Gaunt, Studies of
Philology XVIII, 429-452.
Lawrence, W. W. 1940: The Tale of Melibeus, Essays and Studies in Honor of
Carleton Brown.
Leon Sendra, A. & Serrano Reyes, J. L. 1992: Spanish References in The
Canterbury Tales, SELIM 2, 106-141.
Maccolly, W. 1988: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a Romance á Clef,
Chaucer Review 23, 78-92.
144
John of Gaunt’s intervention in Spain & Chaucer
____________________________________________________________________
Manly, J. M. & E. Rickert 1940: The Text of the Canterbury Tales, II.
Martin, J. L. ed. 1991: Pero López de Ayala. Crónicas. Planeta, Barcelona.
Nieto Soria, J. M. 1993: Ceremonias de la Realeza. Propaganda y Legitimación en la Castilla Trastámara. Nerea, Madrid.
Palmer, J. J. N. 1971: The Parliament of 1385 and the Constitutional Crisis of
1386, Speculum XLVI, 477-490.
Rades y Andrada, F. 1572: Chrónicas de las tres órdenes y cavallerías de
Santiago, Calatraua y Alcántara . Toledo.
Rios, J. A. de los 1984: Historia Social, Política y Religiosa de los Judios de
España y Portugal, II. Turner, Madrid.
Robinson, F. N. ed. 1957: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Oxford.
Russell, P. E. 1955: The English Intervention in Spain and Portugal in the
Time of Edward III and Richard II. Oxford.
Savage, H. 1949: Chaucer and the ‘Pitous Deeth’of ‘Petro, Glorie of Spayne’,
Speculum 24, 357-375.
Serrrano Reyes, J. L. 1997, Spanish Modesty in the Canterbury Tales:
Chaucer and Don Juan Manuel, SELIM 5, 29-45.
Serrano Reyes, J. L. 1996: Didactismo y Moralismo en Geoffrey Chaucer y
Don Juan Manuel: Un Estudio Comparativo Textual. Servicio de
Publicaciones de la Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba.
Stiwell, G. 1944: The Political Meaning of Chaucer’s Tales of Melibee,
Speculum 19, 434-456.
Suarez Fernandez, L. 1970: Historia de España. Vol. I. Gredos, Madrid.
Tate, B. 1987: El Camino de Santiago, Barcelona.
Tout, T. F. 1929: Literature and Learning in the English Civil Service in the
Fourteenth Century, Speculum 4, 365-389.
Vazquez de Parga, Lacarra, J. M. & Uria 1948: Peregrinaciones a Santiago,
Madrid.
145
Jesús Serrano Reyes
____________________________________________________________________
*†*
146
NOTES
DID SIR THOMAS PHILIPPS (FL. 1489-1520)
WRITE I LOVE A FLOWER?
AMONGST the freshest of early carols is one on the Tudor Rose, written
for three singers and beginning ‘I love a flower of sweet odour’. Questioned
on the charms of marjoram, lavender, columbine, marigold, primrose, violet,
daisy, gillyflower, rosemary, camomile, borage, and savory, the first singer at
length tells the others that his love is the rose red and white.
I love the rose both red and white.’
Is that your pure perfite appetite?’
To here talke of them is my delite.’
‘Joyed may we be
Our prince to see
And roses thre!’1
This delightful song survives with its music in London, British Library,
MS Add. 5465, the ‘Fairfax Manuscript’ compiled in the first quarter of the
sixteenth century and belonging to the musician Robert Fairfax (d. 1529),
gentleman of the Chapel Royal.2 The lyric has been popular with anthologists.3 Yet its authorship has remained unclear, even though the name ‘Sir
Thomas Phelyppis’ occurs with it in the manuscript. Chambers and Sidgwick
comment, ‘A certain Sir Thomas Philips or ap Philip was appointed Sheriff of
Pembrokeshire in 1516, and a Thomas Phillippis, B.A., received a chantry at
Woodstock on Jan. 9, 1518. He is probably the poet, as “Sir” is often, in the
1
2
3
The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, ed. Celia and Kenneth Sisam (Oxford,
1970), 548.
E. K. Chambers, English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1945),
98; The Early English Carols, ed. R. L. Greene, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1977), 307.
Item 1327 in Carleton Brown and R. H. Robbins, An Index of Middle English Verse
(New York, 1943), it appears in Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries,
ed. R. H. Robbins (New York, 1959), 91-3
Andrew Breeze, Selim 6 (1998): 149—152
Andrew Breeze
____________________________________________________________________
case of a priest, the equivalent of the Cambridge Dominus, which indicates B.
A.’1 Davies describes the song as ‘with music for three voices by
Sir Thomas Phillipps, who is otherwise unknown. The words may also be
by him.’2 The Sisams treat the poem as anonymous. Greene is also sceptical,
remarking that ‘No other composition by this Sir Thomas Phelipps is known.’
He regarded Chambers and Sidgwick’s identification of the author as the
priest Thomas Phillipps as ‘doubtful’.3
Could Sir Thomas Philipps, sheriff of Pembrokeshire, thus have written
the song? Philipps’s life is known is some detail. His family’s home was
Cilsant, now a remote farmhouse in south Dyfed, six miles north-east of
Whitland. He is described as having married Joan Dwnn, heiress of Picton
Castle, near Haverfordwest, before 17 October 1491. Thereafter he prospered.
He was esquire to the body of Henry VII and was appointed a steward of the
lordships of Llanstephan and Oysterlowe (= Ystlwyf, west of Llanstephan, in
south Dyfed) on 16 May 1509. On 7 September 1509 he was appointed
coroner and escheator of Pembrokeshire and the lordship of Haverfordwest,
in west Wales. In the French war of 1513 he commanded 100 men and was
knighted; on 16 October 1516 he became sheriff of Pembrokeshire. He died
before 8 December 1520, when his son John Philipps, server of the chamber,
succeeded him in his offices.4
It is true these records do not suggest Sir Thomas Philipps, founder of the
great Pembrokeshire family of Philipps, was a poet or musician. Yet he was
also the patron of the Welsh bard Lewys Glyn Cothi (fl. 1447-89).5 In a surviving poem, Lewys praises Thomas and Joan for their hospitality at Picton,
elaborately comparing them to the heroic figures of Welsh tradition, and
1
Early English Lyrics, ed. E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgwick (London, 1907), 342.
Medieval English Lyrics, ed. R. T. Davies (London, 1963), 361-2.
3
Greene, 480.
4
The Dictionary of Welsh Biography (London, 1959), 752-3.
5
The Poetical Works of Lewis Glyn Cothi (Oxford, 1837-9), 301-4; Lewys Glyn Cothi
(Detholiad), ed. E. D. Jones (Caerdydd, 1984), 51-2; cf. Gwaith Lewys Glyn Cothi,
ed. D. R. Johnson (Caerdydd, 1995).
2
150
Did sir Thomas Philipps write I love a flower?
____________________________________________________________________
speaking of the wines of Mantes, Normandy, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Speyer
(near Mannheim), and Spain which they dispensed.1 He also says,
Tomas fal tîm sy felys,
Tymyr i holl wyr y llys.
Ferfain yw’r gwr cryf arfawg,
Un o ras ei enw yrhawg.2
That is, ‘Thomas is sweet like thyme, a nature for all men of the court. The
strong armed man is vervain [used as a medicinal plant in the middle ages],
his name one of grace for long to come.’ The existence of a highly literate
Welsh poem in Philipps’s honour suggests he had some interest in poetry. It
also allows us to date his marriage to 1489 or before, as Lewys almost
certainly died that year.
The political allusions of the English carol provide firmer support for Sir
Thomas Philipps’s links with it. Editors agree that the white and red rose celebrates Henry VII’s reconciliation of the Houses of York and Lancaster on his
marriage to Elizabeth of York in 1486. It is possible the lines ‘Joyed may we be
/ Our prince to see / And roses three!’ refer to prince Arthur. He was born 20
September 1486 and was invested as prince of Wales with much pomp on 27
February 1490 (John Skelton writing a poem for the occasion), but died of the
sweating sickness at Ludlow on 2 April 1502, aged 15.3
What we know of Sir Thomas Philipps accords with the dating of the
English carol. His duties as esquire to the body of Henry VII locate him at the
court at the right time: as a Welshman who profited by his fellow-Welshman
Henry VII’s political success, he would have reason to share his sovereign’s
joys. Given the attribution to Sir Thomas Philipps in the contemporary Fairfax
Manuscript, we may associate poem and courtier with some confidence. Sir
Thomas’s literary interests were maintained by his grandson Richard
Philipps, whose collection of Welsh proverbs, pedigrees, poems and tracts
1
E. D. Jones, ‘Lewis Glyn Cothi’, in A Guide to Welsh Literature, ed. A. O. H. Jarman and G. R. Hughes, ii (Swansea, 1979), 243-61, at 258
2
Lewys Glyn Cothi, 52.
3
Francis Jones, The Princes and Principality of Wales (Cardiff, 1969), 128-30.
151
Andrew Breeze
____________________________________________________________________
on prosody and bardic privileges is now Aberystwyth, National Library of
Wales, MS Peniarth 155.1
Thomas Philipps’s position at Henry VII’s court means, then, that we can
rule out the Woodstock priest Phillipps as author of the poem or composer of
its music. The sole problem is the nature of the Fairfax Manuscript’s attribution. Many of this manuscript’s attributions (Cornish, Fairfax, Davy, Banistre,
Newark, Sheringham, Tudor, Turges, and Browne) are to composers, not
poets, though the composer may sometimes have written both words and
music.2 Hence it is more likely that Philipps wrote the music of I Love a
Flower than its words. (Although the song may date from the 1490s, the ascription must also postdate 1513, when he was knighted.) We cannot be sure
that Sir Thomas Philipps wrote the poem I Love a Flower of Sweet Odour,
though it remains possible. Nevertheless, his recognition as probable composer of the music at least places him within a school of Welsh musicians
(John Lloyd, Robert Jones, Philip ap Rhys, and John Gwynedd) active in early
Tudor England, which in some aspects pointed the way to the achievements
of Tallis and Byrd.3
Andrew Breeze
University of Navarre
*†*
1
Dictionary, 753; Rhyddiaith Gymraeg: Detholion o Lawysgrifau 1488-1609
(Caerdydd, 1954), 60-4.
2
Chambers and Sidgwick, 299; Chambers, 98; Greene, 307.
3
Dictionary, 582, 752; Glanmor Williams, The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation (Cardiff, 1962), 449.
152
REVIEWS
&
NOTICES
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
SWANTON, MICHAEL 1997: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, translated and
edited by Michael Swanton (Dent, London); xxxvi + 364 pages; ISBN
0-460-87867-0; £ 12.99 in the United Kingdom only.
THIS paperback edition of Professor Swanton’s translation of the AngloSaxon Chronicle will be warmly welcomed. It was first issued in hardback in
1996, and immediately became the version of the Chronicle which all students
of early English history and literature had to have.
The material of the Chronicle is stirring stuff. It is the first continuous
history of any modern European nation in its own language. Compiled over
several centuries, it describes the invasion of post-Roman Britain by the English; the development of their society; their conversion to Christianity from
the year 597 onwards; the Viking attacks of the ninth and tenth centuries, and
the English response to them (sometimes cowardly, sometimes heroic); and
the Norman Conquest of 1066. The writing of the Chronicle was continued at
Peterborough, in the English Midlands, until the year 1154. The annals for
these last years provide an unforgettable picture of the atrocities committed
in King Stephen’s reign, when people said openly that ‘Christ and his saints
slept’.
Professor Swanton provides a fitting treatment of this venerable document. His translation, which effectively replaces the one made in 1953 by
Norman Garmonsway for the Everyman series, shows differing versions of
the Chronicle text on facing pages. He provides full commentary and up-todate bibliography. His work on the last is especially valuable, since it enables
historians and others to update themselves on the enormous amount of research that has been published on the Chronicle in recent decades. His translation also comes complete with maps, genealogical tables, and some excellent photographs. These last range from a picture of the dragon from a real
Viking ship, to a gold ring worn on the finger of king Alfred’s grandfather.
The ring was found in 1780 in a cartrut at Laverstock, just outside Salisbury.
(One wonders how it was lost, and who lost it.) It is typical of the unexpected
things to be found in this edition that Professor Swanton should tell us this.
155
Reviews, Andrew Breeze
____________________________________________________________________
In short, Michael Swanton’s version of the Chronicle has now become the
essential edition of this text. The results of his labours will be with us for
many years. His translation should be found in the library of every institution
that takes the study of early England and its language seriously.
Andrew Breeze
University of Navarre
*†*
156
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
BAKER, PETER S. ed. 1995: Beowulf: Basic Readings. Norfolk & London:
Garland Publishing.
Beowulf: Basic Readings is the first book in a series of volumes that collect classic and recent essays in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. (BRASE:
Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England. General Editors C. T. Berkhout, P.
E. Szarmach and J. B. Trahern.)
In this first volume P. S. Baker selects essays that show the development
in Beowulf studies from the 1960s to the present, from the New Criticism to
the methodologies that go under the labels “post-structuralist”. Most of the
articles deal with literary criticism, but the reader can also find studies of
metrics, textual criticism, analogies and history; these articles have been part
of the standard reading list for the last two decades.
The anthology starts with “Beowulf” an essay written by E. G. Stanley in
1966, a work reprinted repeatedly in anthologies and volumes.1 The author
points out that Beowulf is a sophisticated text and rejects the idea that the
poem was a primitive text simple and merely based on oral-formulaic structures, and composed by an illiterate bard. The author studies the complex
style of the poem, both its small and its large structures, and points out that
the poem’s sophistication makes extemporaneous composition unlikely:
The excellence of the poem is in large measure due to the concord
between the poet’s mode of thinking and his mode of expression.
An associative imagination works well in annexive syntax, each in
the cause of the other’s excellence. At the same time, he is good
with the smaller units, the words and formulas which all AngloSaxon poets hand to handle. (p. 25)
Stanley also suggests that Beowulf is a great poem because the
Christian poet chose to write of the Germanic past and his success
lies in that choice: “The elements of Old English poetic diction, the
words and the traditional phrases feel at home in the world which
they find celebrated in song.” (p. 29)
1
This essay first appeared in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English
Literature, ed. Eric Gerald Stanley. London, Nelson, 1966, pp. 104-40.
157
Reviews, Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
The article written by Larry Benson “The Pagan Coloring of Beowulf”1
accepts the view that the poem was essentially pagan; he attempts to show
that the Christian audience in the eighth century was inherited in the primitive
history of their ancestors and they felt admiration for their pagan kings and
heroes. When Benson wrote this article many critics did not see Beowulf as
essentially pagan, they thought that the poem consisted of a pagan core and
later Christian interpolations. Benson, instead, see Beowulf as the unitary
product of one poet’s imagination. the author reconsiders the “pagan coloring” of the poem against the background of Latin accounts of the English
missions to the Continent. This was the period when the English Church was
engaged in an intense missionary activity on the Continent and many English
monks went to christianise to the Frisians, Danes, Old Saxons and other
Germanic tribes, and the study of this attitude “can shed considerable light
on the problems raised by the pagan elements in the poem revealing artistry
where we thought we detected blunders. (p. 37) The author of the article insists in the same idea at the end of his work as he suggests:
we owe the survival of the poem to its touches of paganism, for the
only manuscript in which it survives was written at that other
moment in English history, around the year 1000, when English
churchmen were again concerned with the fate of their heathen
kinsmen in northern Europe. (p. 47)
The third article of the volume is “Beowulf and the Margins of Literacy”2
written by Eric John; as a historian he examines Beowulf as a source of interest from a historical point of view. The author does not read Beowulf as a
Christian exegesis or an allegory, following Goldsmith’s interpretation, or as
an outstanding work as a literary text, following Sisam’s ideas, the author
bearing in mind such interpretations says “so different, so absolutely contradictory, are their conclusions, it is difficult to believe they (Goldsmith and
Sisam) are writing about the same poem” (p. 51). John prefers to read Beowulf
as a feudal poem shot through with the values of a warrior society. He thinks
that Beowulf is essentially “a poem written from, about, the class of retainers;
1
This essay first appeared in Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Robert P. Creed.
Providence, Brown University Press, pp. 193-213.
2
This essay first appeared in the Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of
Manchester, 56 (1973-74) pp. 388-422.
158
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
it seems to me that the poem has nothing of the hallmark of the learned clerk
in it. It seems to me impregnated with the social and personal experience of
the retainer.” (p. 73) The author rejects the Christian influence and patristic
interpretations.
We need, I think, to rest the theological Beowulf for a while, and
try out a less familiar sociological Beowulf. At the same time we
must realise, in my view, that some of the poem, including the
qualities that would really enable us to make secure judgements on
its literary merits, has been lost irretrievably. It is obvious that we
ought to know just how good a knowledge of weapons and fighting the poet had: did his first audience approve his acumen or deride his ignorance? (p. 74)
Fred Robinson is present in this anthology with one of his most influential and known studies “Elements of the Marvellous in the Characterisation of
Beowulf: A Reconsideration of the Textual Evidence”1 The author points out
that elements of the marvellous are not uncommon in Beowulf as we can see
in the poem a fire-breathing dragon, sea monsters and ogres from the race of
Cain. Robinson examines in a close reading three passages, the descent into
Grendel’s mere, the return from Frisia, and the swimming feat with Breca. In
these passages, the author suggests that the text does not support the
traditional point of view that the hero’s strength is superhuman; his interpretation is that Beowulf is a very strong hero, but actually he is nothing
more than a man. “The poet’s concern to portray Beowulf as a man rather
than as a superhuman is revealed in his repeated allusions to the hero’s
physical limitations and vulnerability.” (p. 79) Robinson presents some
examples, in lines 739 and ff. we can appreciate that the hero is incapable of
preventing Grendel from killing the Geatish warrior Hondscioh. In other text
the hero confesses to king Hrothgar that he lacked the strength to hold the
monster in the hall and kill him there. Even in the last section of the poem we
can notice Beowulf’s suffering and death as a human and not as a romance
hero. Robinson argues (p. 80):
1
This essay first appeared in Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed.
Robert B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving. Toronto, University of Toronto Press,
1984. Pp. 119-37. The present reprint incorporates some revisions by the author.
159
Reviews, Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
If we return to the text of Beowulf and examine each of the three
occasions where Beowulf seems to be temporarily endowed with
supernatural powers, we will discover a strange insubstantiality in
the evidence for such endowments. In fact, I am convinced that the
supposed evidence for a superhuman Beowulf is largely a fiction
of editorial interpretation and comment and that Beowulf throughout is conceived of as a heroic man and not as a romance hero.
Greenfield studies Beowulf from a formalist point of view in “The Authenticating Voice in Beowulf.”1 It is known that Greenfield was a formalist in
the tradition of the New Criticism and his essay shows his preference for this
methodological analysis. Greenfield hears in Beowulf an “authenticating
voice that tends to stabilise meaning in the text, if not the text itself”. The author identifies four ways the narrator’s voice responds to the events and
character’s of the poem: by distancing them, by contemporizing them, by
making ethical judgements, and by stressing the limitations of human
knowledge. The voice authenticates a “literalness” in the text, therefore this
“voice” does not invite to a symbolic, typological or allegorical interpretation.
Greenfield suggests that the secular, concrete, social meaning probably
dominated the audience response, and that the poet had a concrete, human
interest in legendary material rather than an intellectual interest in theological
allegory. The authenticating voice in Beowulf, in Greenfield’s opinion,
obviously is not allegory or abstract ideas derived from exegetical
interpretations:
I should like to advance the hypothesis that the patristic exegetical
mode of thought and analysis is but a sub-species of a more universal way of viewing human experience, a way that is embedded
in the narrative mode itself, a way that is especially suited for, but
not limited to, the epic genre. (p. 108)
Marijane Osborn in “The Great Feud: Scriptural History and Strife in Beowulf.”2 appreciates the positive feelings of the Anglo-Saxons towards their
ancestors, an idea repeatedly expressed by Stanley, Benson and Robinson
among others. This article represents a modern trend towards viewing the
poem as the work of a Christian looking sympathetically, albeit with regret, at
1
2
This essay first appeared in Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976) pp. 51-62.
This essay first appeared in PMLA 92 (1978) pp. 973-81.
160
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
the pagan past. Osborn thinks that the poet distinguishes “between the levels of Knowledge, the bound of the secular world of the poem and that perceived from our initiated Christian perspective”(p. 112). The author argues
that the Christian audience understood certain passages as “Scyld’s funeral”
and “the Creation song” recited at Heorot in a way that the pagan inhabitants
of the poem’s world could not; she says that there is no pagan-Christian
problem in Beowulf, as many critics have pointed out, “Rather than being in
apposition, these two elements form an epistemological scheme embracing
both secular and spiritual understanding like that presented more traditionally
in the Wanderer.” (p. 122)
C. J. Clover in his article “The Germanic Context of the Unferth Episode.”1
offers an analysis of the “flyting”, a narrative set-piece common to Beowulf
and several Scandinavian sources. ( A “flyting” consists of an exchange of
verbal provocations between hostile speakers in a predictable setting). Clover
analyses the Norse “flyting” as a mythological or heroic unit that may stand
alone e. g. Lokasena or be embedded in and subordinate to a larger context,
the “ferocious ferryman” episode in the Nibelungenlied. The author points
out different characteristics that can be found in a “flyting”, such as the
setting of the debate, the contenders and dramatic situation, the structure,
the content (most “flytings” consist of boasts and insults) and outcome.
Once Clover has presented this literary convention in Scandinavian and
Germanic contexts he analyses the relationship of the Unferth episode to the
Norse “flyting” and he notices analogies in situation and in the nature of the
speeches, in tone and in the use of sarcasm, in the emphatic I/you contrast
and the use of names in direct address, in the combat metaphor and in the
matching of personal histories and in such correspondences of detail as the
charges of drunkenness and fratricide and the Hell curse. At the end of the
article Clover suggests (p. 147):
the recognition of the Unferth episode as a “flyting” illuminates
certain of its puzzling aspects … it further makes more comprehensible his subsequent camaraderie, which need not be interpreted as a shame-induced mea culpa as Bonjour believes nor as
1
This essay first appeared in Speculum 55 (1980) pp. 444-68.
161
Reviews, Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
an act of disguised treachery, but simply as a resumption of normal
deportment after his temporary stint as formal interrogator.
Roberta Frank analyses in her article “Skaldic Verse and the Date of Beowulf.”1 the probable influence between the large corpus of surviving skaldic
verse from the tenth century and Beowulf. Frank suggests that the central
tale of Beowulf could have come from the lips of the English-Scandinavian
settlers of the Danelaw and not from the wellspring of folk memory. It is
known that the English and Danes in the North soon coalesced into one
nation. Recent scholarship tends to stress assimilation and mutual tolerance
and even attraction of the two peoples. In the tenth century in the East of
England there were two different peoples speaking closely related languages
and working within similar political and ecclesiastical structure, therefore
there was an appropriate context to develop a poem such as Beowulf. The
author says that if we accept that the poem came into existence between 890950, that is to say, in Alfred or Alfred’s successors’ period, solves far more
problems than it poses. Certain passages in Beowulf become more explicable
if we accept an author and an audience from the tenth-century, for example,
the description of Grendel’s mere, as we have a text with specific verbal parallels in the conclusion of the sixteenth Blickling homily, and some critics have
pointed out that Beowulf was influenced by the homily and not vice versa.
Frank repeats once and again the same idea about a late date for Beowulf explicitly expressed in these lines. “Nothing in the bits and pieces of information extracted from skaldic verse was found incompatible with a date for Beowulf in the late ninth or the first half of the tenth century; and some facts
were more compatible with this period than with any other.” (p. 169)
Colin Chase is present in the volume with the article “Beowulf, Bede, and
St. Oswine: The Hero’s Pride in Old English Hagiography,”2 an essay where
Chase develops some of the ideas expressed in “Saint’s Lives, Royal Lives,
and the Date of Beowulf” edited in his well known book The Dating of Beowulf. (1983) The author argues that Beowulf was probably written in the
Viking Age (X th. century) because the hagiographical literature seemed more
1
2
This essay first appeared in The Dating of “Beowulf. Ed. Colin Chase. Toronto,
University of Toronto Press, 1981. pp. 123-39.
This essay first appeared in The Anglo-Saxons: Synthesis and Achievement. ed. J. D.
Woods and David A. E. Pelteret. Waterloo, Ontario, Wilfrid Laurier University
Press, 1985, pp. 37-48.
162
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
informed by the heroic sensibility than did that of the age of Bede. Chase
based his views on two accounts of St. Oswine’s death, one from Bede’s
Historia Ecclesiastica and the other from anonymous eleventh-century
retelling of Bede’s story. After comparing both accounts Chase demonstrates
that the heroic ideal was alive in late Anglo-Saxon England, but also sheds
light on the long-running debate concerning the propriety of Beowulf’s decision to fight the dragon. The author, the same as Benson and Robinson,
reads Beowulf against the background of the Anglo-Saxons’ understanding
of their own present and past. Moreover, Chase points out that the Vita
Oswine supports the identification of a conflict in Beowulf between the
heroic code and the royal responsibility, but it does not support the
allegorical or didactic idea that the hero is himself infected with pride or
avarice.
Kevin S. Kiernan, in his article “The Legacy of Wiglaf: Saving a Wounded
Beowulf,”1 summarises the complex linguistic and palaeographical arguments
of his renowned book Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript. (1986) Kiernan
dates Beowulf in the first decades of the eleventh century, in the reign of
Cnut. The author suggests that the poem was under revision at the time it
was copied, thus the poem, as we have it today, is contemporary with the
manuscript. Moreover, the dating of the script cannot be restricted to the
opening years of the eleventh century because if one follows Ker, he says,
there is no palaeographical evidence for excluding the writing of Beowulf
manuscript during or even sometime after the reign of Canut the Great 10161035. At the end of the article Kiernan summarises his well known idea about
the very late date in Old English period for Beowulf with these lines:
The current state of the text on this folio indicates that it was still
in a draft stage when the poem’s Old English history came to an
abrupt halt. It is well to remember that at this time Anglo-Saxon
history was about to come to an abrupt halt too. The poem remains
unfinished on this folio to this day, making the manuscript, at least
in part, an early eleventh-century record of an early eleventh-century poem. (p. 211)
1
This essay was delivered as a lecture at the University of Kentucky in 1983; it was
printed in The Kentucky Review 6 (1986) pp. 27-44. For the present reprints the author has added annotations both supplementting and updating the text.
163
Reviews, Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
G. L. Overing examines three of the women of Beowulf: Hildeburh,
Wealhtheow and Modthryth, in his article “The Women of Beowulf: A Context for Interpretation.”1 Critics have noticed the absent of love and romantic
passion in Old English poetry; passion, in fact, is located only in the bonds
of loyalty and friendship between men. Women have a very small role in Old
English literature, and in Beowulf many critics think that they are marginal,
excluded figures. However, in the last two decades some articles and books
have been published emphasising the role of women in Anglo-Saxon culture
and literature. Overing’s project is to see what happens when one
approaches Beowulf with a set of desires different from those that have
dominated criticism of Beowulf in the past. The author of the article is not
concerned only with the desires of the poem’s characters but also with the
reader’s desires. Desire, on the other hand, has been a prominent topic in
recent discussion of Old English literature, including obviously Beowulf; we
desire with the assis tance of the post-modern modes of literary criticism. As
Overing says “my broader aim will be to suggest a context for interpretation
of the poem in which the operation of desire - that of the characters within the
narrative and that of the critics without - may be acknowledged and
revalued”(p. 219). At the end of the article Overing has interpreted the women
of Beowulf following her own desires identified with feminine form of desire
and suggests how new questions might be brought to language “by the
conscious examination of the interplay of our own desire with that of the
text.” (p. 254)
M. Blockley and T. Cable present in this volume an article based on the
New Philology: “Kuhn’s Law, Old English Poetry, and the New Philology”.
The authors analyse the laws formulated by Kuhn to demonstrate the necessity of reformulating the categories of sentential stress upon which it crucially relies. H. Kuhn made some observations about the positions in clauses
of Germanic poetry of a category of words he called “particles” and from
these observations he developed two laws governing the placement of these
words. Kuhn’s First Law (Satzpartikelgesetz) states that all particles in a
clause must be grouped together in a dip either before or immediately after
the first stressed word; they may not be distributed both before and after the
1
This essay is based on the final chapter, “Gender and Interpretation in Beowulf” of
Language, Sign, and Gender in “Beowulf” Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1990. The author has revised it for separate publication.
164
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
first stressed word; and they must not be placed after the initial stressed
word if it is preceded by a proclitic or an unstressed prefix. Kuhn’s Second
Law (Satzspitzengesetz) states that if a clause begins with a metrical dip, the
dip must contain a particle; a proclitic or an unstressed prefix alone cannot
precede the first stressed word.
Blockley and Cable demonstrate in their article the inadequacy of Kuhn’s
Law as descriptions of Old English poetic syntax and sketch the outlines of a
metrical and syntactic theory that will account for the evidence more adequately; they suggest that “our basic argument is that the levels of syntactic
representation and of metrical representation must be kept distance.” (p. 263)
In the last part of their assay Blockley and Cable place their theory in the
context of the study of English metrics, and also in the context of the New
Philology, the recent movement that aims to reformulate medievalists’ traditional approaches to the text in light of post-modern developments in literary
theory and related disciplines. They argue that knowledge of current mainstream linguistics is a proven way of gaining new insights into the structure
of a death language. To finish with, they say:
There is a certain bedrock stability to the interaction of sound and
syntax in Old English poetry, a stability which generations of
readers have intuited, the task of the philologist is to find the description that make those intuitions explicit. (p. 278)
Despite the learned and sometimes passionate arguments the question
about dating Beowulf remains open. One of the implications of our ignorance
concerning the date of Beowulf is that it discourages any close interpretation
of the poem that depends on a specific period of Anglo-Saxon history; therefore, the poem is of little use, except in a general way, in the interpretation of
that history.
R. M. Liuzza examines the date of Beowulf in “On the Dating of Beowulf”
under two headings, the internal evidence of meter and language, and the
external evidence of historical context. In both cases the arguments are
circular and often undermined by the instability of the evidence on which
they are based. In his opinion the establishment of the poem’s date is itself
an act of interpretation “one of the hermeneutic activities most productive of
knowledge of the poem and its meaning.” (p. 295) Liuzza points out that
165
Reviews, Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
metrical tests for dating Old English poetry are not reliable in more than a
vague way of establishing a chronology of the Old English poetic corpus;
actually, many critics today criticise the faith in the metrical and textual evidence because there are many problems in using a purely inductive descriptive system for the purpose of dating Old English poetry. On the other hand,
as Liuzza says, “metrical tests for dating tend to subsume all variation under
historical causation, thereby ignoring or severely restricting the extent of individual control in a poet’s work.” (p. 288) Liuzza suggests that Anglo-Saxonists have much to say about the interdependent relation between text and
context:
because trying to draw a conclusion on this matter is one of the
most ancient and important questions of our field … When we talk
about the dating of Beowulf we are talking nothing less than the
philosophical foundations of our discipline. (p. 295)
This volume will very likely become a standard book for those students
and scholars of Old English and more specifically of Beowulf because they
will surely find many “classical” ideas but also some thought-provoking suggestions.
Antonio Bravo
University of Oviedo
*†*
166
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
POLLINGTON, STEPHEN 1997: First Steps in Old English. Norfolk: AngloSaxon Books.
Pollington’s First Steps in Old English was inspired by Macrae-Gibson’s
course Learning Old English. This work, similar to other valuable booklets
prepared by university teachers but, unfortunately, unavailable in
bookshops, marked a route followed by First Steps, though the latter has
developed and extended the seminal idea leading to a complete book.
First Steps in Old English is addressed to absolute beginners with no or
little knowledge of linguistics and Old English who want to follow a sel-study
approach to Old English literature. With this reader in mind, Pollington has
avoided those linguistic matters that are not really fundamental for an
immediate translation and understanding of Old English prose texts. Theoretical discussion on linguistic topics concerning Old English sound changes,
semantics or lexicon are absent from this volume, and syntax and spelling are
reduced to a minimum, being morphology the core of the book.
The first part of First Steps, the Old English course itself, is divided into
eighteen lessons which the author refers to as sections. Each section follows
a similar layout: presentation of the topics, questions for comprehension,
practical exercises, vocabulary and translations. The understanding of the
topics, presented in an accesible way, is regularly tested by the use of certain
questions that invite the reader to think about the text. Apart from these comprehension questions, Pollington inserts what he calls “Practice”, a subsection to drill the reader in the constructions just studied in the relevant lesson.
Two parts called “Vocabulary” and “Exercises” are also included at the end
of each section. The latter consists in translations from and into Old English,
graded according to difficulty, which can be corrected with the key in the
fourth part of the book.
Contents are introduced gradually and they remain unexhausted in one
section. In this way, different grammatical categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) are dealt with simultaneously, making it possible for the reader to
have at her/his disposal the necessary elements to understand and construct
sentences in Old English from the very beginning. Pollington has, in fact,
167
Reviews, Alicia Rodríguez
____________________________________________________________________
adopted the system used in handbooks for modern languages which allows
the reader to become familiar with the language in a natural way. The reader
does not only study the forms in isolation but also observes how they
interrelate with other elements in the sentence. The combination of words in
sentences gives the author the opportunity to mention topics such as word
order, impersonal constructions, negation or subordination.
In this part – “Old English Course”-, Pollington has been quite consistent
with the initial idea of designing a basic handbook, restricting to the notes
any additional information on semantic issues, paleographical data, sound
changes or dialectal forms other than West Saxon. However, I think some
phenomena could be better understood if they were described in detail, or
otherwise the reader might get the impression that these phenomena occur
arbitrarily. This is the case of i-mutation or i-umlaut. Pollington mentions
forms affected by i-mutation just as deviations from the rule, without presenting explanations as to why this is so. If, on the contrary, the sound change
were explained in plain terms, these forms would immediately become understood by the student.
In the second part of this book, “Old English Grammar”, Pollington offers
information on pronunciation,1 and a glossary of grammar terms which,
according to the author himself, will help the reader to approach other traditional handbooks. Besides, under the name “Accidence” he presents tables
with the paradigms already described in the previous part.
If the reader has reached this point successfully, s/he will be ready to face
the Old English prose texts selected for her/him in the third part. To guide
her/his first steps, Pollington parses the text identifying the form and syntactic function of the elements. This process helps to understand the structure
of the text but will be dropped gradually at the same time as the reader
becomes more confident.
Two glossaries close this book; the first one includes the words in the selected prose texts, and the second one makes reference to the words used in
the translations at the end of each section. The dispersal of words in three
different places –let’s remember that after each section there is a
1
The selected texts are included in an audiotape cassette (Ærgeweorc) which can be
used in conjunction with First Steps in Old English.
168
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
“Vocabulary” where other words are listed- is one of the drawbacks of this
volume. It seems more convenient and timesaving to have just one glossary
at the end of the book with all the words used in the translation exercises and
in the selected texts.
All in all, the author is successful in providing a self-study handbook addressed to a reader whose main concern is to manage the necessary tools to
read Old English prose texts at her/his own pace. Through Pollington’s book,
solid foundations are set so that the student can move on to other
handbooks suggested by Pollington, such as Mitchell and Robinson’s Guide
to Old English or Sweet’s Reader. For students who feel unconfident about
their translation abilities and want to read original Old English texts, the
author recommends parallel texts in Modern English. However, he warns of
the danger cast by translations, since great reliance on them may lead to
missing the taste of genuine Old English prose. A last piece of advice put
forward by Pollington is directed to practised readers who want to continue
with Old English: they will need a deeper knowledge of the language and
pursue higher courses on Old English.
Pollington’s main contribution is to have widened a limited range of published handbooks on Old English for beginners, such as Blakeley’s Teach
Yourself Old English or Magennis and Herbison’s Discovering Old English.
Pollington’s achievement, however, is not only quantitative but also qualitative, as I will try to show below.
Blakeley (1964) offers basic notions on Old English. Methodology followed in her book, though, is different from Pollington’s. It is more traditional
in its conception and gives more information on changes affecting Old
English, especially phonological changes. Besides, it seems to address a student with linguistic background and concern.
A more recent book for self-study is Magennis and Herbison’s (1990).
Their point of departure is similar to that of Pollington, as stated in the preface to their work:
The aim of this book is to enable the modern reader who has little or no
previous knowledge about the earlier stages of English and little formal
knowledge about language in general, to experience a number of short Old
English texts in the original language. (Magennis & Herbison 1990: v)
169
Reviews, Alicia Rodríguez
____________________________________________________________________
The layout of the book, however, is also different from Pollington’s First
Steps. The authors do not include practice, questions or translations in the
middle of the theoretical component of the course, but follow a conventional
thematic organization, i.e., to study every grammatical category separately,
and postpone translation exercises to the end of the course, which, in my
opinion, is less attractive to the beginner. Besides both books focus on
different aspects. Whereas Pollington devotes most of his book to explain the
language (the exercises show his interest to check the reader’s
comprehension), Magennis and Herbison are more concerned with the
guided readings/texts.
A similar work directed to a student with no linguistic knowledge, but
more interested in the language rather than in the literature, is an electronic
guide available in the web which “… will provide a basic introduction to Old
English with exercises” (Jebson 1997). This guide, still under construction, is
similar to Pollington’s in the way it includes exercises in the middle of sections or at the end of each lesson.
Altogether, First Steps in Old English is good and comprehensive, and at
the same time entertaining and user-friendly, a combination difficult to find in
works of this sort. Indeed, there is no need to struggle on the way to enjoy
Old English literature!
Alicia Rodríguez Álvarez
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
REFERENCES
Blakeley, L. 1964: Teach Yourself Old English.The English Universities Press,
London.
Jebson, T. 1997: Learning Old English. <http: //lonestar.texas.net /˜jebbo/
learn-as/ contents.htm>.
170
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
Macrae-Gibson, D.1984. Learning Old English: A Progressive Course with
Text, Tape and Exercises. Published by the author, University of Aberdeen.
Magennis, H. & Herbison, I. 1990: Discovering Old English. Guided Readings. Ultonian Press, Belfast.
Mitchell, B. & Robinson, F. C. 1964: A Guide to Old English. Blackwell,
Oxford & Cambridge (Mass).
Pollington, S. 1997: Ærgeweorc. Old English Verse and Prose Read by
Stephen Pollington. Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books.
Whitelock, D. 1970: Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
*†*
171
Reviews, Javier Calle
____________________________________________________________________
DE LA CRUZ, J., CAÑETE, A. & MIRANDA, A. 1995: Introducción Histórica a la Lengua Inglesa. Málaga, Ágora.
Introducción Histórica a la Lengua Inglesa offers us a clear and detailed
account of the history of the English language from its origins to its present
stage. This study is the result of a group effort by a team of Malaga University who aimed to write a book for their Spanish undergraduate students of
English philology and, as such, it successes in providing the students with
an overall perspective of diachronic linguistics.
Professor De la Cruz stands out as an eminent and distinguished figure
for his previous and very rigorous works on historical linguistics and, among
many others, we could mention his articles “Old English Pure Prefixes.
Structure and Function”, “The Origins of the Germanic Phrasal Verb”,
“Linguistic Scholarship and the Linguistic Interpretation of Old English Data”
and his books La Prosa de los Anglosajones, Iniciación Práctica al Inglés
Antiguo or Historia del Inglés, this one co-written with A. Cañete.
The book begins with a “shock” for the reader. The authors very wittily
have included a passage from the Old English Apollonius and from the
Spanish Medieval Libro de Apolonio both with their modern translations into
English and Spanish. The object of this shock pages are, beyond all doubt, to
capture the student’s attention and to provoke “an automatic impression of
proximity and alienation that is skilfully exploited by the authors and helps
both to arouse and maintain the interest of the reader” (Fernández-Corugedo
1993: 192).
With regards to the book’s structure, it is divided into two different parts.
The first part is composed of up to three different units or chapters. Chapter 1
(17-24) involves a general introduction in which the authors employ a figure
of the human brain remarking the areas in which human beings usually store
the capacity of communication. This introduction is followed by a general
historymeter used to illustrate the chronological location of important events
and a map of the main linguistic families around the world.
172
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
Chapter 2 (25-38), as many other books concerning the same field (De la
Cruz & Cañete 1992: 45-84; Fernández 1982: 37-72; Berndt 1984: 16-30)
contains an elaborated description of the external history of the English language from its origins to the Early Modern Age as the authors are especially
interested in depicting the circunstances which actually favoured the standardization of Contemporary English. Although further accounts could have
been provided on its subsequent development, the authors prefer to cite
some other specialized references.
Chapter 3 (39-60) closes the first part of the book. Following the line of
previous books (Brook 1972: 28-58) it is concerned with the description of the
Indoeuropean to concentrate afterwards on the Germanic and the detailed
description of its varieties and phonological and morphological peculiarities.
This chapter finishes with a stock list of words showing the Scandinavian
and French influence on English lexicon, on the one hand, and on English
morphotactics, on the other. The French influence on vocabulary conforms
an in-depth analysis since, just like Baugh’s A History of the English Language (1971: 200-213), it is divided for a better understanding into various
semantic fields, that is, governmental and administrative words, ecclesiastical
words and those connected with army, law, art, meals and social life.
This first section as a whole has proven itself to be of great interest for
the reader as it succeeds in providing the reader with a valuable background
to set in the study of language itself. Nevertheless, it must be regarded to be,
with the exception of some maps and diagrams, as almost a mere word-byword reproduction of the introductory section found in De la Cruz and
Cañete’s previous book Historia del Inglés.
The second part comprises the foremost of the book and it is subdivided,
as the authors explain using the simile of the “magic box”, into three different
sections which may be summarized as follows:
- Section A (63-131): words
- Section B (135-138): operations
- Section C (141-186): orthography and pronuntiation
Section A is devoted to an extensive analysis of the different parts of
speech, that is, nouns (63-75), adjectives (77-83), pronouns (85-99) and verbs
173
Reviews, Javier Calle
____________________________________________________________________
(101-131). Whereas some other manuals on this field (Bourcier 1981; Barber
1972) usually begin with the study of these grammatical cathegories in Old
English to proceed with the subsequent stages of English or even carry out a
retrospective historical analysis (Strand 1994), this book differs from these
methods and opts to present us the analysis both synchronically and
diachronically at the same time. Thus, following the line of Peters (1968: 126172), it is a step-by-step explanation of these parts of speech presenting the
history of each part independently. This methodology happens to be very
profitable for didactic purposes since, with the help of illustrations and
paradigmatic charts, it affords a valuable knowledge of the internal development of English which enables the students to set in some further and more
specific readings on the subject.
Section B (135-138), though somewhat reduced in its content, manages to
exhibit a proficient explanation of the various sentential functions of English,
that is to say, negative and interrogative sentences (135-136) on the one
hand, and relative and phrasal complementation (137-138), on the other.
Section C (141-186) involves the historical development of the orthography and pronuntiation of English. This section follows the same methodology of section A and displays both synchronically and diachronically the development of consonants (141-152) and vowels (153-186) covering in detail all
the various stages of English history, from the complex system of Old English
to the modern situation in Contemporary English, along with consonantal
orthographic and phonological innovations of Middle English, its
subsequent development and a clear-cut description of the vowel system
both before and after the so-called Great Vowel Shift.
Taking into account that this book has been designed as a course book
for University students, the authors have profitably enclosed a twofold
glossary which happens to be very helpful for didactic purposes. On the one
hand, there is a thematic glossary (187-190) functioning as in index which undoubtedly speeds up the student’s needs to consult a specific subject. On
the other, the book also incorporates a diachronic glossary (191-200) which
becomes of great help for the reader when studying the historical
development of the English orthographical system, enabling them the
possibility of self-training activities.
174
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
The last pages of the book deal with references (201-204). This bibliography is structured into three different parts. First of all, the authors cite what
they consider to be the main source to carry out any type of English study
(YWES). Second, a selection of the basic and most important dictionaries of
English. And, third, a general bibliography which comprises more than 150
entries thus offering the reader a wide variety of sources for future readings
and researches on historical linguistics.
The bibliography, though very exhaustive itself, turns out to be
somewhat irregular in its presentation. I am referring, in fact, to those entries
written by a same author in which we can observe the use of inverted
commas instead of a continuous three-dash line flush with left margin
followed by a period, as they are customary cited.
Furthermore, there are some other flaws in the book. In-text citations are
not wholly systematic throughout the text. For instance, on page 12 we come
across a reference to Swanton’s book Anglo-Saxon England and, paradoxically, it is not listed in the general bibliography. Likewise, on page 185 the
authors cite Jespersen and we never get to know which of Jespersen’s books
they are actually following, either Growth and Structure of the English Language or A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. In this
sense, the authors should have used not footnotes but in -text citations to
allude to references and this method would have undoubtedly provided the
text with a more systematic form of citation. The book also contains some
spelling mis takes like that on page 166 in ffrere instead of frere, or that on
page 47 in simplifacatoria instead of simplificatoria, and surprisingly, this
one happens to be present in Historia del Inglés as well.
Furthermore, the book is accompanied by Textos y Vocabularios para la
Introducción Histórica a la Lengua Inglesa. This is a complementary handbook containing a selection of pedagogically created Old and Middle English
texts with some remarks on their vocabulary, grammar or pronuntiation. Unfortunately, this handbook is now being re-edited owing to the typographical
slips found in the first printing.
All in all, despite all these minor drawbacks of minimum importance which
I am sure that will be corrected and amended in future editions of the book,
Introducción Histórica a la Lengua Inglesa has proven to be very efficient
as a text book for university students as well as for any reader to acquire an
175
Reviews, Javier Calle
____________________________________________________________________
overall and profound perspective on the history of English. And, in this
sense, we must congratulate the authors for their clear-cut methodology and
presentation of data.
Javier Calle Martín
University of Málaga
REFERENCES
Barber, C. L. 1972: The Story of Language. Pan Books, London.
Baugh, A. C. 1971: A History of the English Language. Routledge & Kegan
Paul, London.
Berndt, R. 1984: A History of the English Language. Veb Verlag Enzyklopädie
Leipzig, Leipzig.
Bourcier, G. 1981: An Introduction to the History of the English Language.
Stanley Thornes, Cheltenham.
Brook, G. L. 1972: A History of the English Language. Andre Deutsch, London.
Cruz Fernández, J. M. de la & Cañete, A. 1992: Historia del Inglés. Edinford,
Málaga.
Cruz Fernández, J. M. de la 1972: The Origins of the Germanic Phrasal Verb.
Indogermanische Forschungen 77.1: 73-96.
Cruz Fernández, J. M. de la 1975: Old English Pure Prefixes. Structure and
Function. Linguistics 145: 47-81.
Cruz Fernández, J. M. de la 1983: La Prosa de los Anglosajones. Universidad
de Málaga, Málaga and Salamanca.
Cruz Fernández, J. M. de la 1986: Iniciación Práctica al Inglés Antiguo. Alhambra, Madrid.
176
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
Cruz Fernández, J. M. de la 1989: Linguistic Scholarship and the Linguistic
Interpretation of Old English Data. Actas del I Congreso de Selim.
Oviedo: 28-47.
Fernández-Corugedo, S. G. 1993: Rev. of Historia del Inglés, by J. M. de la
Cruz & A. Cañete. Selim 3: 189-197.
Fernández, F. 1982: Historia de la Lengua Inglesa. Gredos, Madrid.
Peters, R. A. 1968: A Linguistic History of English. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
Strang, B. M. H. 1994: A History of English. Routledge, London and New
York.
*†*
177
Reviews, Eva M. Pérez
____________________________________________________________________
M ORRALL, E. J. ed. 1996: Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius (Pius II): The Goodli
History of the Ladye Lucres. Oxford: EETS - OUP. xlii + 73 pp.
Hardback.
This text has been scrupulously edited, criticised and annotated, in a
study carried out by Professor Morrall that unites conscientious scholarly
analysis of the work, its sources, author, period and general characteristics
with accessible commentary to illustrate its richness and literary worth.
However, this volume is the consequence of another editing process, that
which Professor Morrall intended to carry out on “the earliest German version
of this product of early Italian humanism” (p. v). Consequently, the edition of
this English version highly benefits from the wide-ranging literary scope and
proficiency of this scholar. Nearly half of the volume’s contents is devoted to
the critical apparatus that surrounds the main text, a sixteenth century
translation into English of the Historia duobus amantibus (1444?). The
author was Silvius Piccolomini, who would become Pope Pius II, but was a
layman at the time.
The Goodli History is an anonymous translation, published c. 1553, of the
Historia. The story tells the amours between Lucres, a noble lady of Sienna
married to Menelaus, and Eurialus, a visitor in the city accompanying the
Emperor Sigismund. A bawd is employed to convey messages until Pandalus,
a cousin of Menelaus’s, eases the way for Eurialus after his promise of a
noble title in the Emperor’s court. Eurialus must eventually leave Sienna with
the Emperor, and although he returns briefly, the separation literally kills
Lucres, while he lives mournfully ever after.
Morrall’s edited volume consists of a brief Preface, a List of Contents, a
list of Sigla and Abbreviations, an Introduction, a Select Bibliography, the
Goodli History text, Notes on the text, a Glossary, an Index of Proper Names,
and a list of Concordance of the English and Latin editions. Interspersed in
the text are three plates, whose origin is specified in the List of Contents.
Already in the Preface Professor Morrall states the amount of Latin originals and vernacular versions he encountered in the process of edition, a
knowledge which enables him to fundament his critical preference for one
178
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
particular version, that by John Day (1553?), as he explains later. He also advances how in Silvius’s work the convention of the medieval romance is
transformed in very enriching ways, since the original tale’s plain structure
does not make for a religious dimension, which an ecclesiastic of the stature
of Pope Pius II would be inclined to pursue, while realism is made prominent
in opposition to sentiment.
The list of Sigla is a comprehensible listing of the early printed editions of
The Goodli History, which Morrall nominates a, b and c, for those editions of
John Day (1553?), John Kynge (1560) and William Copland (1567), and the
most frequently cited Latin versions of the Historia duobus amantibus, four
in all. In the Introduction these a, b and c printed versions of The Goodli
History, and the four Latin versions of the Historia Duobus Amantibus are
contextualised and commented on.
The Introduction offers a fine piece of critical research, and comprises five
subsections: 1. The Author, 2. The Printed Editions and the Latin Source, 3.
The Text, the Characters and their Prototypes, 4. The Language and
Vocabulary of the Translation, and 5. Editing the Text. Thus Morrall
scrutinises every aspect of the text and its origins, its meaning and literary
worth.
In a review of Piccolomi’s life Morrall offers ample information on this
figure that seems to have played a paramount role both on the political and
religious spheres at a time when an ecclesiastic schism had to be sealed up
and the fall of Constantinople to the Turks was rather recent. In 1442 he had
been appointed poet laureate in Frankfurt by the future Emperor Frederick III;
he also moved to Vienna to be a secretary in the imperial chancery. He was
likewise a committed scholar, whose knowledge of the Latin classics and the
previous Italian generation was to provide him with the germ of this story of
adulterous love between Lucres and Eurialus. Other works of Piccolomini’s
were already known in England, mostly his De Miseriis, which Alexander
Barclay adapted in one of his Eclogues (1514?). At about the same time, a
first translation of the Historia was published, although only a fragment
exists.
In subsection number 2, The Printed Editions and the Latin Source Morrall explains the details (visible signatures, erasing, staining, binding, leaf size,
number of lines per page, occurrence and appearance of ornamented initials,
179
Reviews, Eva M. Pérez
____________________________________________________________________
type colour, etc.) of the three earliest complete translations that exist of the
Historia (Day’s, Kynge’s and Copland’s, as mentioned), and are compared in
the light of these details. The wording is accessible even to the neophyte, a
fact that should encourage students not very competent in Early English
texts to approach this particular one. This accessibility of phraseology and
presentation is in my view one of the constants throughout the volume, and
one of its principal advantages. Morrall’s edition process proves marked by
thoroughness and logic: “To demonstrate error and thus enable the editor to
choose the best of the three English versions as a base for an edition it is
necessary to investigate the text used as a source for the translation. This
proved to be a Latin version in a printed edition” (p. xv).
He argues that his choice of the text for his edition was conditioned by
their respective proximity to the Latin original source for the translation, even
though, as he maintains, all three have broadly the same text, and repeat
approximately the same errors. Most of these had already been noted by H.
H. Gibbs, who had produced a diplomatic reprint of William Copland’s
translation in 1873.
Morrall’s sifting process has undoubtedly been a patient and devoted
one. He collated forty printed Latin editions, and the conclusion of this
process points to a 1488 edition by Gerard Leeu of Antwerp, which shows a
parallelism between its deviations from the original and the speech
corruptions in the English translation. In addition to this, John Day, the first
printer of this translation, also had connections with Antwerp, on both the
religious and professional levels.
Subsection number three centres on the text and its characters and is by
far the amplest in the Introduction, which leads one to think of Morrall as a
scholar concerned as much, if not more, with strictly literary concerns (crossreferences, adaptations, intertextuality) as with editorial ones. Because of its
nature, this third section reads easily and throws interesting data on the protagonists of the tale and the tale itself.
Morrall reflects on the story as it appears in the English translation, as
opposed to its longer Latin original. In it the tale is preceded by letters to
Mariano Sozzini and Caspar Schlick, which endow the tale with a realism
heightened by an authorial indication that Eurialus is an alias for Schlick
himself. Sozzini was Piccolomini’s friend and former teacher at the University
180
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
of Sienna; Schlick was the Imperial Chancellor. However, these letters could
serve precisely to make for a realism which a fictitious story lacked. In any
case, since they are absent from the English translation, their documentary
nature in this roman à clef is equally lost. By eliminating also a passage on
the illicit ways by which men obtain their titles, Morrall considers the
translator is obscuring the author’s critical intention in writing this story,
which is none other than warning the young of the perils of love’s frivolities.
The characters, Morrall discusses, may have been reflections of real life
personalities. The moral purpose is built up in Morrall’s view by Piccolomini’s choice of names for his protagonists, Eurialus being the best example
for his indebtedness to one of Virgil’s Trojan warriors, passionate and devoted, and to a gladiator created by Juvenal who fathers an illegitimate child.
Morrall maintains that Piccolomini only felt some sympathy for his male
character towards the end of the story, which has Eurialus withering away
after news of Lucres’s death of sadness has reached him. The author’s opinion of the heroine is more positive, as seen already in her name. Unlike the
legendary Roman Lucretia, she does not commit suicide, but the theme of the
broken heart runs parallel with multiple mentions to classical and legendary
cases of women who in Lady Lucres’s position took their own lives, such as
Medea, Ariadne and Dido.
Piccolomini may have been partaking here of a debate held by the church
and the humanists over the topic of suicide, one of the participants being
Coluccio Salutati with his Declaratio Lucretiae (c. 1367), which evidently
provided Piccolomini with a name for the lady. In letting Lucres die of dejection, he avoids making her an adulteress and a murderer. The reading public
were ready to receive Lucres with sympathy, Morrall maintains, as they indeed did, to judge from the editions that ensued the first, since she had been
created also a cultured and eloquent humanist.
Morrall goes on to examine the characters of Pandalus and Eurialus, who
have each a correspondent in Boccaccio’s Filostrato, although of a different
nature. He maintains the indebtedness of Piccolomini’s work to that of Boccaccio’s, in spite of the differences, the most important one being the reversal
of roles in the pairs. It is Criseida that abandons Troilus, which she does for a
new lover. Troilus’s nobility and faithfulness are opposed to Eurialus’s cynicism and fickleness, but also Criseida outdoes Eurialus in cruelty. Structural
181
Reviews, Eva M. Pérez
____________________________________________________________________
and lexical proximity are proof Morrall uses to stress the relationship between
both works, for “the humanist parallels reinforce the thesis that the Historia
is indeed a roman á clef and based upon a genuine amorous adventure while
being heavily indebted to literary models” (p. xxxiii).
In the fourth section, dealing with the language and vocabulary of the
translation, Morrall gives ample evidence of his knowledge of literary figures,
or rhetorical figures of speech, which come very helpfully accompanied by an
explanation of their meaning and of course by examples. These figures, he
says, constitute a sign of both the translator’s skills in adjusting these figures from the Latin source and his ear for rhythm and musical effect. Overall
Morrall considers the translation fluent and idiomatic, and that in spite of the
occasional mistranslation.
The reader perhaps misses in this introductory subsection a general outline of the characteristics of the English language at this particular time when
the translation was carried out, more so once Morrall states that the abundant
rhetorical figures are “clear signs of a developing literary language” (p. xxxiii).
In this period English was the object of serious attempts at cultivation and
regularisation, when a conscious effort was being made to reproduce the
standard of London and the court. This brought English to a state recognisable for the modern reader, mostly owing to the effects of the Great Vowel
Shift, on the pronunciation level, and to the eventual consequences of the
printing press, on the spelling level. The spirit of the age, however, had
spread to its language, distinguished by a plasticity people used to mould
and categorise words at their will. New words, variation in pronunciation and
spelling still prevailed, but would be settled with Modern English. Again, I am
bearing in mind the beginner in Early English, who would appreciate to have
these general notions at hand prior to reading the text. Even if these
constitute basic knowledge of the development of the English language, it
would represent no great effort to very cursorily point them out.
Finally, a fifth subsection deals with the technical aspects of the text edition. The text itself is presented within a clarifying framework, the only critical
additions being line numbers and a notation system (of the type [A.i], [A.ii]
… up to [H.iii]) to specify the gatherings of the original. The first are
obviously used to identify lines that the later Notes interpret in the section
following the text. The latter show which gathering of the Latin original
182
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
commences with the line they are annexed to. Both aids occur to the left of
the main text in the even pages and to the right in the odd ones, following a
system that does not hinder the reading of the text. A further convention, a
vertical line, is used to mark the end of a page. All these points are clearly
expounded by the author in the fifth and final section of the introductory essay (pp. xxxvii-xxxix), together with the minor alterations (misprints and little
errors) he may have decided to emend in the edition. Morrall’s own words
explain that “the principal intention in editing this text has been to reproduce
as closely as possible the book as originally printed by John Day (a)” (p.
xxxvii).
The Select Bibliography comes preceded by the notice that certain entries
must be looked for in the list of Abbreviations and the notes to the Introduction and the text. While acknowledging the appropriateness of having each
reference and footnote specified where it is most necessary, I defend the use
of comprehensive bibliographies, which do not demand too great an effort
and provide the work with a sound bibliographical back-up that both the specialised scholar and the beginner like to find in one separate section.
A difference is made between the use of footnotes and endnotes. The
first are used to refer to variants between the early printed editions of The
Goodli History. No numerical reference appears in the body of the text to
warn the reader of a footnote specification: this on the one hand allows for a
fluent reading of the text, but on the other forces the reader to check the
footnotes for an eventual explanation of specific points where he may need
help.
Endnotes broadly serve to compare the translated version with the Latin
originals, and to provide commentaries on the author’s classical or legendary
allusions. They are preceded by Morall’s explanation of his methodological
procedure. In their format they result rather straightforward: location is signalled by the page and line numbers separated by a stroke, and followed by
the word(s) or sentence(s), in bold type, object of the explanation. Otherwise,
like the footnotes, they are not announced by a numerical superscript in the
main text, this disadvantage being stressed here by the fact that these notes
appear all at the end of the text, which forces the reader to continually move
backward and forward in search of the translation’s affinities with the Latin
source or other type of extra information.
183
Reviews, Eva M. Pérez
____________________________________________________________________
Overall, this is an accomplished edition of a translation into English of a
Latin original, with as much attention paid to the text itself as to the careful
method followed in the critical apparatus. Sections are clearly delineated and
the conventions adopted explained, cross references to other sections made
only when they may be necessary or explanatory. It is, I believe, a conscientious work of textual edition aided by accessible elucidation, virtues both of
which turn this edition into an appealing object of study for scholars and students alike. On the whole, a volume worth reading both for the high scholarly
criteria and the delightful tale of Eurialus and Lucres of Sienna.
Eva M. Pérez Rodríguez
University of Oviedo
*†*
184
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
BLAKE, NORMAN FRANCIS 1996: A history of the English language.
Houndmills: MacMillan. (xv + 382 pp.)
Como es tradición y muestra de honrado comedimiento por parte de los
eruditos en la materia, asistimos a la publicación de ‘otra’ historia de la lengua
inglesa, esta vez a cargo del prolífico y ameno Norman Blake. El manual
pretende cubrir las necesidades del lector no especializado, sea o no
universitario. Es éste un objetivo difícil de satisfacer y que requiere enorme
esfuerzo por parte del autor, dado que el espectro de necesidades que genera
un público de tales características no es sólo amplio, sino, sobre todo, diverso. Así en virtud de la divulgación, Blake adopta un tono narrativo en el
que se encuentra cómodo y en el que el lector más relajado se embarca con
facilidad. Sin embargo, el carácter continuado del texto resulta en ocasiones
formalmente enojoso para el universitario que persigue un dato concreto. Por
otra parte, las limitaciones que toda obra general naturalmente establece
impide en este caso prescindir de ciertos pormenores ineludibles para el estudiante y de menor interés quizá para otro tipo de lectores. En este sentido,
el mencionado tono narrativo oscurece la claridad expositiva a que normalmente obliga la descripción de sistemas fonológicos en evolución, por poner
un fácil ejemplo. Con todo, estos aspectos formales no deben empañar una
obra sólida y personal, como tampoco deben hacerlo dos erratas tipográficas
(pp. 318 y 319), sorprendentes en las siempre cuidadas ediciones inglesas, de
las que dejamos constancia sin más.
La obra que nos ocupa rezuma ecos de las cualidades personales de su
autor, deja ver su sólida formación literaria y estilística, su conocimiento de la
tradición, y su talante nunca dócil a lo establecido. Y en la intersección de
tales rasgos radica, desde luego, su mayor virtud. Quizá debamos ver en ello
también la base de la polémica que pueden suscitar algunas cuestiones
menores (relativas a la fechación de ciertos cambios, o a afirmaciones como la
que se recoge en la p. 35 acerca de la idea de jerarquización lingüística que
podía estar presente en la mente de la mayoría de los anglosajones).
Pero volviendo a sus logros, el libro se abre con una reflexión, ya anunciada en el Congreso de Valencia de 1992 y en el correspondiente artículo
185
Reviews, Paloma Tejada
____________________________________________________________________
publicado con posterioridad,1 sobre la naturaleza y la cronología del inglés y
de la historia de la lengua inglesa. Al decidirse por acometer la historia detallada del estándar y revisar la periodización de la historia del inglés estableciendo como criterio el grado de estandarización logrado en distintas fases,
Blake consigue por una parte proponer explícitamente lo que otros apuntaban
desde distintas periferias —al constituir obligado tema de estudio pero sin
incardinar aún en el seno de la disciplina—, y por otro disolver un debate
tradicional sobre la arbitrariedad y el carácter no lingüístico de los criterios
seleccionados para dividir una unidad supuestamente difícil de fragmentar de
manera coherente.
Esta historia de la lengua inglesa es la historia del estándar inglés
británico, cuyos sucesivos episodios vienen marcados por la modificación de
las actitudes observables social y lingüísticamente con respecto a la
normalización del idioma. Además de este cambio de perspectiva global,
absolutamente acertado y acorde con la investigación que desde hace más de
quince años se está llevando a cabo sobre la historia del inglés, queremos
destacar variaciones más sutiles, análogas en importancia y similar muestra
del talento del autor, con respecto al peso que conceden a ciertas cuestiones
otros manuales tradicionales. Así, en el libro cobra especial relevancia el periodo comprendido entre los siglos XI y mediados del XIII; la relación angloescandinava se equipara abiertamente a la anglo-normanda, o se recuperan
las relaciones comerciales vigentes entre Inglaterra y Holanda en diversos
momentos de la historia.
Sutilmente novedosa e igualmente atractiva resulta en segundo lugar la
complicada trama que Blake va urdiendo a través de las líneas en torno a las
relaciones observables entre lengua hablada y lengua escrita, particularmente
la brecha que se abre poco a poco entre teoría poética y norma lingüística. El
artículo que Blake cita en la nota 10 de la página 334 confirma que éste es un
tema que le ha mantenido atento en los últimos tiempos y cuyos detalles consigue transmitir en este libro más general. Junto a esto y como tercer gran
punto de interés del libro, creo que merece la pena destacar el detenimiento
que Blake concede a diversos textos metalingüísticos que se han producido a
lo largo del tiempo sobre el inglés. La consideración más pormenorizada de lo
1
Blake, N., 1994, ‘Premises and periods in a history of English’, en Fernández, et al.,
eds., 1994, English historical linguistics 1992, Amsterdam: Benjamins
186
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
habitual de obras como las de Lowth, Trench, Cobbet y otras anteriores y
posteriores, es quizá exigencia ineludible de la nueva perspectiva, pero no por
ello resulta menos destacable el trabajo realizado. En esto también, Blake es
receptivo a un nuevo corpus de investigación histórica y divulga un nuevo
canon de cuestiones que deben atenderse en manuales sobre la materia.
Aunque de principios actualizados, la obra de Blake es una historia de la
lengua que se mueve dentro de la tradición, en la que lo extralingüístico, la
literatura y ahora lo sociolingüístico, el léxico y la fonología aportan el aliento
que va animando el relato y la línea de estudio previo. Blake, profundo
conocedor de la bibliografía tradicional que indirecta y rigurosamente
reivindica, ha seleccionado una serie de estudios necesarios y certeros de los
últimos veinte años para articular sus reflexiones renovadoras, pero no se
hace eco, ni pretende, de las complejas perspectivas que hoy en día afectan a
la explicación del cambio lingüístico, una tarea acometida desde tradiciones
distintas a la suya y de la que el libro de Smith, J., 1996, An historical study of
English. Function, Form and Change, puede ser buen ejemplo. El libro, con
todo, abunda en detalles individuales que por romper con lo habitual, como
ya se ha dicho, mueven a la reflexión o en algún caso a la controversia.
Ocupándonos ya de aspectos más formales, controvertida resulta, sin
duda para quien no lo conozca, la manera en que Blake recoge sus deudas intelectuales, a veces sigilosamente en el cuerpo del texto, otras de manera excesivamente general, otras en la correspondiente nota final. La obra carece de
una sección bibliográfica convencional, aunque sí incluye una relación de
lecturas recomendadas por temas. Como conclusión a cada uno de los capítulos, Blake comenta un texto breve que a su juicio resulta significativo y representativo de lo expuesto. El comentario es algo más rutinario que el tono
general del libro y creo que tanto por razones pedagógicas como por las divulgativas se echa en falta la traducción de los tres primeros. El destinatario
del texto, por último, puede remitirse a un glosario básico de términos técnicos y a una tabla de símbolos fonéticos que se incluyen al final.
Todo libro de Blake siempre resulta oportuno, intelectualmente valiente,
académicamente satisfactorio y en cierta medida provocador; es evidente que
en todos encuentra el autor ocasión para sus guiños intelectuales y el lector
materia para disfrutarlos.
187
Reviews, Paloma Tejada
____________________________________________________________________
Paloma Tejada Caller
Universidad Complutense
*†*
188
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
BJORK, ROBERT E. & JOHN D. NILES eds. 1997: A Beowulf Handbook.
Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
A Beowulf Handbook tries to present a general survey of all the major is sues in Beowulf studies, from old controversies such as the “Christian and
Pagan Elements” or the date and provenance of the poem to discussions that
have arisen more recently, such as the question of “Gender Roles” or the impact of “Contemporary Critical Theory” on readings of the poem.
The book is arranged into eighteen individual chapters (each dealing with
one of these major themes) in charge of well-known scholars, from those we
can associate with the traditional methods of Anglo-Saxon studies, such as
Thomas Shippey, to those that work with modern literary theory, as Seth
Lerer or Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe.
As it is told by the editors in the preface, every chapter begins by a very
brief summary of its contents, followed by an annotated chronology of the
different scholarly trends on the matter in question since the very beginnings
of Beowulf studies till 1994. The core of each chapter includes three main
points: first, a general description of the different scholarly reactions to the
problem under consideration. Then, the current state of opinion and, finally,
an analysis of what, from the point of view of the contributor, is still to be
done in the subject.
This book differs thus in organization from the other guides to Beowulf
criticism we had to resort to before, such as Nicholson’s An Anthology of
Beowulf Criticism (1965) or Peter S. Baker’s Beowulf: Basic Readings. (1995).
These were both collections of essays that have become essential points of
reference in Beowulf studies, such as Tolkien’s “Beowulf: The Monsters and
the Critics” or Benson’s “The Pagan Coloring of Beowulf “. Each essay
logically offered only the author’s individual vision on the topic, whereas the
chapters in A Beowulf Handbook attempt a general overview, reviewing all
important positions.
The project is well executed and, as the editors claim, very useful for
“college or university instructors who teach Beowulf and are unfamiliar with
all the problems attendant on this enterprise” (ix), who can find here a good
189
Reviews, Setmaní Valenzuela
____________________________________________________________________
overview of the main problems raised in scholarly discussion of the poem.
However, the condensation most of the discussions present might make them
useless, or at least quite boring for the specialist, who would already be
aware of these main problems. On the other hand, they may perhaps be an
incomprehensible mess for “nonspecialists who wish to read Beowulf with a
basic understanding of the poem” (ix). We find, for instance, many paragraphs like this:
Sutherland (1964) sees Beowulf as based on the Gospel of John as
set out in the liturgical lectionary. Delasanta and Slevin (1968) argue for a Christological purpose by which the poet seeks to perfect
the pagan heroic ideals through submerged references to Christ.
Ziegelmaier (1969) … seeks liturgical symbolism of baptism at work
… (244).
In this short paragraph, the reader receives a big amo unt of information,
somewhat difficult to assimilate and assess if, as it indeed happens, he/she is
hardly ever told upon what ground each scholar decided to formulate his/her
own opinion or the arguments put forward to uphold it.
This is not in fact very useful for the beginner, who would have to turn to
the different references provided in order to understand the basis of the dis cussion. But this is a problem that cannot be easily solved since, if we were
to be explained every single view, this handbook would have needed two or
three volumes at least.
The newcomer to the field of Beowulf studies would be somewhat puzzled
to find, in the contributor’s personal account, apparently contradictory
affirmations. Irving, for instance, writes first about the “three different accounts of pagan funeral rites of a kind known to be frequently condemned by
Christian authorities” (178), claims that “the Danes are said to engage in actual worship of heathen gods”(178), and affirms that “the Danes were pagan”(178). However, he later announces Hrothgar, king of the Danes, to be
“the most thoroughly christian speaker of the poem.” (185).
This in itself confusing enough but, what would the beginner think when
he/she, trying to review Irving’s discussion, finds on page 178: “The dominant strategy of the poem might be summed up as ‘let’s assume these old
190
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
heroes were much like us in their beliefs’.”? Who, may the contemporary
reader ask, are “us”? And what beliefs do “we” share?
Some discussions lack objectivity, since they are colored by the contributor’s own opinion, so the reader would be unconsciously led by it. Irving
(again!), for instance, is quick to dismiss Fred C. Robinson’s Beowulf and the
Appositive Style (1985), judging it as “misguided and unsuccessful” (187).
However, he dedicates a page and a half to praise an article of his own: “The
Nature of Christianity in Beowulf.”(185-86), while he normally dedicates no
more than a brief paragraph to other scholarly views.
Special mention deserve the last three chapters (by Alexandra H. Olsen,
Seth Lerer, and Marijane Osborn respectively), devoted to relatively new aspects of Beowulf criticism, as “Gender Roles” (Chapter 16), the impact of
“Contemporary Critical Theory” in the discussion of the poem (Chapter 17),
and “Translations, Versions, Illustrations” (Chapter 18). These three chapters
especially caught my attention both because of their novelty and their intrinsic interest.
I found particularly interesting the third and fourth points of chapter eighteen, devoted to “Shape Shiftings: Beowulf in new forms” and “Illustrations
of Beowulf” respectively. In the former, Osborn deals with “actual creative
adaptations of Beowulf into other genres”(351) as comic-books or fairy-tales
together with short stories, novels, and even symphonies. In the latter, we
find some examples of illustrations that are indeed “creative”, such as a
“Native-American Beowulf” or a cover drawing from a comic book called
“Beowulf: Dragon Slayer”, showing our hero fighting “The Serpent of Satan”
accompanied by a young woman carrying a sword (in the role of Wiglaf, I
suppose.). One of these drawings should have been used in the cover illustration of the handbook, since they are both much more appealing than the
Grendel we find there, who looks very much like the Beowulf we have on
page 164 by the same author, but with more hair (or feathers, rather!).
The list of translations we find in this chapter is good, though the
Spanish reader will not fail to notice some errors, as the claim that Lerate and
Lerate’s (1986) is the most recent Spanish translation, actually being that by
Angel Cañete (1991).
191
Reviews, Setmaní Valenzuela
____________________________________________________________________
The few problems mentioned notwithstanding, I agree with the editors
that this handbook has great value both as a teaching aid and as a source or
guide for “graduate and advanced undergraduate students who, in scrutinizing the text of Beowulf face a daunting task, although an exilarating one” (ix),
such as myself.
In judging the final utility of this handbook, it seems inevitable to borrow
Bjork and Obermeier’s words when they claim: “all we can say with assurance
when asked when, where, by whom, and for whom the poem was composed is
that we are not sure. The quandary we thus find ourselves in with these first,
essential questions about the poem, of course, has serious ramifications for
most, if not all other, interpretations of it” (33).
This is similar to a sentence by James W. Earl, with which I would finish
any Beowulf handbook:
We cannot safely use the poem to help us interpret Anglo-Saxon
history; we cannot assume the poem is representative of any period, or even, finally, representative of anything at all.
This, I think, is the most important thing to take into account by anyone,
whether specialist or not, who writes or reads on Beowulf criticism.
Setmaní Valenzuela
Universidad de Sevilla
W ORKS CITED
Baker, Peter S. ed. 1995: Beowulf: Basic Readings. New York & London:
Garland.
Benson, Larry D. 1995: The Pagan Coloring of Beowulf. > Baker 1995.
Cañete, Angel 1991: Beowulf. Málaga: Universidad de Málaga.
Earl, James W. 1994: Thinking About Beowulf. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
192
Reviews & Book Notices
____________________________________________________________________
Irving, Edward B. 1984: The Nature of Christianity in Beowulf. ASE 13: 7-21.
Lerate, Luis & Jesús Lerate 1986: Beowulf y otros poemas anglosajones
(siglos VII-X). Madrid: Alianza.
Nicholson, Lewis E. ed. 1963: An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Robinson, Fred C. 1985: Beowulf and the Appositive Style. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 1963: Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.> Nicholson
1963: 51-103.
*†*
193
Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY 1995-97
Aers, David & L. Staley. The Powers of the Holy: Religion, Politics and
Gender in Late Medieval English Culture. University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1996.
Alamichel, Marie-Francoise & D. Brewer. eds. The Middle Ages after the
Middle Ages in the English-Speaking World. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Alford, A. J. & J. Simpson. eds. Yearbook of Langland Studies 9. Boydell &
Brewer, 1996.
Allen, Cynthia L. Case Marking and Reanalysis: Grammatical Relations
from Old to Early Modern English. Clarendon, 1995.
Alston, R. C. Order and Conexion: Studies in Bibliography and Book History. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Anderson, Theodore M & Stephen A. Barney. eds. Contradictions: From
Beowulf to Chaucer: Selected Studies of Larry D. Benson. Scolar
Press/Ashgate P. C., 1995.
Astel, Ann W. Chaucer and the Universe of Learning. Cornell University
Press, 1996.
Baker, J. H. and J. S. Ringrose. eds. Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts
in Cambridge University Library. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Baker, Peter S. & Michael Lapidge. eds. Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion. EETS, ss
15. OUP, 1995.
Barber, R. The Knight and Chivalry. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
194
Bibliography 1995-1997
____________________________________________________________________
Barrat, Alexandra. ed. The Seven Psalms: A Commentary on the Penitential
Psalms translated from French into English by Dame Eleanor Hull.
EETS, os 307. OUP, 1995.
Barron, W. R. J. & S. C. Weinberg. eds. and tr. Layamon’s Brut. Longman,
1996.
Beckwith, S. Christ’s Body: Identity Culture and Society in Late Medieval
Writings. Routledge, 1996.
Bichoff, B. & Michael Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury
School of Theodore and Hadrian. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Bisson, Thomas N. ed. Cultures of Power. Twelfth Century Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
Blis, Alan. The Scansion of Beowulf. Western Michigan University, 1995.
Boffey, J & A. S. G. Edwards, eds. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer and the
Kingis Quair, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS arch. Seldon. B. 24. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Boffey, J. & J. Scatterwood. eds. Texts and Their Context: Papers from the
Early Book Society. Four Court Press. Irl. 1996.
Braun Pasternack C. The Textuality of Old English Poetry. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Brewer, C. & A. G. Rigg. eds. Piers Plowman: Z-Text, Bodleina Library,
Oxford, MS Bodley 851. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Brewer, D. & J. Gibson. eds. A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. Boydell &
Brewer, 1996.
Britton, Derek. English Historical Linguistics 1994: Papers from the 8th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. J. Benjamin
Publishing C. Edinburgh, 1995.
195
Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
Burguière, A and C. Klapisch-Zuber. eds. History of Family Life. Vol. I Remote Words and Ancient Worlds. Blackwell, 1995.
Carley, J. P. & F. Riddy. eds. Arthurian Literature XIII. Boydell & Brewer,
1995.
Carley, J. P. & F. Riddy. eds. Arthurian Literature XIV. Boydell & Brewer,
1996.
Carlson, D. R. English Humanist Books: Writers and Patrons, Manuscript
and Print. University of Toronto Press, 1996.
Chambers, E. K. The Mediaeval Stage. (originally published by OUP, 1903)
Dover, 1996.
Cherchi, Paolo. Andreas and the Ambiguity of Courtly Love. University of
Toronto Press, 1994.
Chibnall, Marjorie. Anglo-Norman England 1066-1166. Blackwell, 1995.
Clark A., J. Goebel, T. Bestul and W. Polard eds. Vox Mystica. Essays on
Aspects of Mystecism in Honour of Valerie Lagorio. Boydell & Brewer,
1995.
Clark, Cecil. Words, Names and History. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Clark, F. M. Theme in Oral Epic and in Beowulf. Garland, 1995
Conde Silvestre J. C. Crítica Literaria y Poesía elegíaca anglo-sajona: Las
Ruinas, el Exiliado errante y el Navegante. Universidad de Murcia,
1994.
Conde Silvestre, J. C. and A. Sanchez Pérez. An Introduction to the History of
the English Language. I. Old English. Universidad de Murcia, 1996.
Conner, P. W. ed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 10: The Abingdon Chronicle
A. D. 956-1066. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
196
Bibliography 1995-1997
____________________________________________________________________
Copeland, R. ed. Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Cornelius, R. Die altenglische Interlinearversion zu De Vittiis et Peccatis in
der Ms. British Library, Royal 7 C. iv. Peter Lang, 1995.
Cross, J. E. ed. Two Old English Apochrypha and Their MAnuscript Source:
The Gospel of Nichodemus and the Avenging of the Saviour. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Cubbin, G. P. ed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 6: MS D. Boydell & Brewer.
1996.
Davis, N. ed. Beowulf, British Museum MS Cotton Vitellius A xv. Boydell &
Brewer, 1996.
Deskis, Susan. Beowulf and the Medieval Proverb Tradition. Medieval and
Renaissance Studies, 1996.
Doyle, A. I. ed. The Vernon Manuscript, Bodleian Library MS Eng. poet. a.
I. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Dronke, P. The Medieval Lyric. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Dumville, D. N. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: MS F, British Library MS
Cotton Domitian A. viii. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Duncan, T. G. ed. Medieval English Lyrics: 1200-1400. Penguin, 1996.
Duby, Georges. Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages. Blackwell, 1994.
Earl, James W. Thinking about Beowulf. Stanford University Press, 1996.
Edwards, R. R. & V. Ziegler, eds. Matrons and Marginal Women in Medieval
Society. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
197
Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
Evans, Angela Care. The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. (Revised edn. British Museum Press, 1994.
Ferster, J. Fictions of Advise: The Literature and Politics of Counsel in Late
Medieval England. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
Fisiak, Jacek. ed. Linguistic Change under Contact Conditions. Mouton de
Gruyter, 1995.
Flood, John L. ed. The German Book 1450-1750. University of Toronto
Press, 1995.
Flower, R. & H. Smith, eds. The Parker Chronicle and Laws, Corpus Christi
College Cambridge, MS 173. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Given-Wilson, Chris. ed. An Illustrated History of LAte Medieval England.
Manchester University Press, 1996.
Glassgold, Peter, ed. Boethius: The Poems from “On the Consolation of Philosophy” Translated out of the Original Latin into Diverse Historical
Englishings. Sun & Moon, 1994.
Gneuss, Helmut. Language and History in Early England. Variorum GBR.,
1996.
Godden, Malcolm, S. Keynes & M. Lapidge. eds. Anglo-Saxon England. Vol.
25. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Gollancs, I. ed. Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain, Britis Museum
MS Cotton Nero A. X. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Guerin M. V. The Fall of Kings and Princes: Structure and Destruction in
Arthurian Tragedy. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Gunnell, Terry. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia. Boydell & Brewer,
1995.
198
Bibliography 1995-1997
____________________________________________________________________
Hagen, Ann. A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production & Distribution. Hockwold cum Wilton, Norf: Anglo-Saxon Books,
1995.
Hahn, T. ed. Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and tales. Medieval Institute
Pub., 1995.
Hallissy. M. A. Companion to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Greenwood
Pub., 1995.
Hanna III, R. ed. The Ellesmere Manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Hanna III, R. Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and Their
Texts. Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture, 1996.
Harpr-Bill, C. ed. Anglo-Norman Studies XVII: Proceedings of the Battle
Conference 1995. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Hill, Joyce. ed. Old English Minor Heroic Poems. Revs. Ed. Dep. of Eng.
Stud. Univ. of Durham, 1994.
Hillman, R. Self-Speaking in Medieval and Early Modern English Drama:
Subjectivity, Discourse and the Stage. Macmillan, 1996.
Hofstra, T., L. A. J. R. Howen, and A. A. MacDonald, eds. Pagans and
Christians: The Interplay between Christian, Latin and Traditional
Germanic Culture in Early Medieval Europe. Mediaevalia
Groningana, 16. Forsten, 1995.
Holder, Arthur G. Bede: On the Tabernacle. University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1995.
Horden, Peregrine and Nicholas Purcell. The Mediterranean World. Man and
Environment in Antiquity and The Middle Ages. Blackwell, 1995.
199
Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
Houwen, L. A. J. R., and A. A. MacDonald, eds. Loyal Letters: Studies on
Mediaeval Alliterative Poetry & Prose. Mediaevalia Groningana, 15.
Forsten, 1995.
Hughes Andrew. Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office. University of
Toronto Press, 1995.
Hutcheson, B. R. Old English Poetic Metre. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Jackson, W. H. Chivalry in Twelfth-Century Germany. The Works of Hartmann von Aue. Boydell & Brewer, 1994.
Jane, Angela W. Conquering the Reign of Femeny. Gerder and Genre in
Chaucer’s Romance. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Jimura, Akiyuki, Yoshiyuki Nakao and Masatsugu Matsuo, eds. A Comprehensive List of Textual Comparison Between Blake’s and Robinson’s
Editions of the Canterbury Tales. University of Education Press, 1995.
Jones, Frederic J. The Structure of Petrarch’s Canzoniere. A Chronological,
Psychological and Stylistic Analysis. Boydell % Brewer, 1995.
Kanno, Masahiko. Studies in Chaucer’s Words: A Contextual and Semantic
Approach. Eihosha, 1996.
Kay, C. & J. Roberts with L. Grundy, eds. Thesaurus of Old English. King’s
College London Medieval Studies, 1995.
Kelly, H. Andy. Chaucerian Tragedy. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Ker, N. R. ed. The Winchester Malory. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Ker, N. R. ed. British Museum MS Harley 2253. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Ker, N. R. ed. The Owl and the Nightingale, Jesus College, Oxford, MS 29
and British Museum MS Cotton Caligula A ix. Boydell & Brewer,
1996.
200
Bibliography 1995-1997
____________________________________________________________________
Ker, N. R. ed. Facsimile of MS Bodley 34, St. Katherine, St. Margaret, St.
Juliana, Hali Meithhad, Sawles Warde. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Kiernan, Kevin S. Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript. rev. edn. University
of Michigan Press, 1996.
Klassen, Norman. Chaucer on Love, Knowledge and Sight. Boydell &
Brewer, 1995.
Klitgard, E. Chaucer’s Narrative Voice in the Knight’s Tale. Copenhagen,
1995.
Kohlhoff, D. The Life and Times of John Trevisa, Medieval Scholar. University of Washington Press, 1995.
Lambdin, L. C. & R. T. Lambdin, eds. Chaucer’s Pilgrims: an Historical
Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales. Greenwood Pub., 1996.
Lapidge, Michael. Anglo-Latin Literature, 600-899. Hambledon, 1995.
Lapidge, Michael. Anglo-Latin Literature, 900-1066. Hambledon, 1995.
Lapidge, Michael. ed. Archbishop Theodore. Cambridge University Press,
1995.
Laskaya, A. & E. Salisbury, eds. The Middle English Breton lays. Medieval
Institute Pub. 1995. 1995.
Lázaro, L. A., J. Simón, R. Sola. eds. Medieval Studies. Proceedings of the
IIIrd. International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval
English Language and Literature. Universidad de Alcalá de Henares,
1996.
Lerer, Seth. Chaucer and His Readers: Imagining the Author in Late Medieval England. Princeton U. P. 1996.
Lester, G. A. The Language of Old aan Middle English Poetry. Macmillan,
1995.
201
Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
Leyser, Henrietta. Medieval Women. A Social History of Women in England
450-1500. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1995.
Linsell, Tony. Anglo-Saxon Mythology, Migration & Magic. Pinner, Mddx.:
Anglo-Saxon Books, 1995.
Mack, Peter & A. Hawkins. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Nun’s Pries’s Tale. OUP,
1996.
Magennis, H. Images of Community in Old English Poetry. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Marx, C. W. The Devil’s Rights and Redemption in the Literature of Medieval England. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
McCully, C. B. & J. J. Anderson. eds. English Historical Metrics. Cambridge
University Press, 1996.
McDonald, W. C. & W. Plail, eds. Fifteenth Century Studies, Vol. 22. Camden
House, USA., 1996.
Milfull, Inge B. The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church. A Study and Edition
of the Durham Hymnal. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Millet, Bella. Annotated Bibliographies of Old and Middle English Literature: II. Ancrene Wisse, The Katherine Group, and the Wooing Group.
D. S. Brewer, 1996.
Mooney, Linne R. The Index of Middle English Prose. XI. Trinity College,
Cambridge. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Niwa, Yoshinobu. The Function and Development of Prefixes and Particles
in Three Early English Texts. The Beginning of the Phrasal Verb. Vol.
II. Kinseido, 1995.
Noel, William. The Harley Psalter. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
202
Bibliography 1995-1997
____________________________________________________________________
Oguro, Shoichi, Tetsuo Kimura and Isao Akama. A Concordance to the
Metrical Version of Mandeville’s Travels. Meikosha, 1995.
Oizumi, Akio. ed. A Biblioraphy of Writings on Chaucer’s English. 3rd. edn.
Olms-Weidman, 1995.
Orchard, Andy. The Poetic Art of Aldhelm. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies. Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf
Manuscript. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Otaka, Yorio and Hideka Fukui, eds. Apocalypse Anglo-Normande. Cambridge Trinity College MS. R. 16. 2. Centre de recherches anglo-normandes, 1995.
Page, R. I. Chronicles of the Vikings: Records, Memorials and Myths. British
Museum Press, 1995.
Page, R. I. Runes and Runic Inscriptions. Collected Essays on Anglo-Saxon
and Viking Runes. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Pattie, T. S. Manuscripts of the Bible. University of Toronto Press, 1995.
Pearsall, D. & K. Scott, eds. Piers Plowman, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS
Douce 104. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Pearsall, D. ed. Studies in the Vernon Manuscript. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Peltere, D. A. E. Slavery in Early Medieval England from the Reign of Alfred
until the Twelfth Century. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Percy, T. ed. Reliquies of Ancient English Poetry (1765) 3 vols. Routledge,
1996.
Philips, H. An Introduction to the Canterbury Tales. Macmillan, 1996.
203
Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
Remley, Paul G. Old English Biblical Verse: Studies in Genesis, Exodus and
Daniel. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Rigby, S. H. Chaucer in Context: Society, Allegory and Gender. Manchester
University Press, 1996.
Rosethal, Joel T. Old Age in Late Medieval England. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
Salda, M. N. & J. Jost, eds. Chaucer Yearbook: A Journal of Late Medieval
Studies, II. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Santano Moreno, B., Adrian R. Birtwistle, L. G. Girón. eds. Papers from the
VII International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature. Universidad de Extremadura, 1995.
Seymour, M. C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Vol. I: Works before
the Canterbury Tales. Scholar Press, 1996.
Sheingorn Pamela. The Book of Sainte Foy. University of Pennsylvania
Press. 1995.
Sims-Williams, P. Britain and Early Christian Europe: Studies in Early
Medieval History and Culture. Aldershot, Hants: Variorum, 1995.
Singman, J. L. and W. McLean. Daily Life in Chaucer’s England. Greenwood
Pub. 1995.
Smith, Jermy. A Historical Study of English: Function, Form and Change.
Routledge, 1996.
Smyth, Alfred P. King Alfred the Great. OUP, 1995.
Southern, R. W. Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. V. II
The Heroic Age. Blackwell, 1996.
Stevenson J. The “Laterculus Malalianus” and the School of Archbishop
Theodore. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
204
Bibliography 1995-1997
____________________________________________________________________
Streitberger, W. R. Court Revels 1485-1559. University of Toronto Press,
1995.
Sturdy, David. Alfred the Great. Constable, 1995.
Surtz Ronald E. Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain.
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
Tavormina, M. T. & R. F. Yeager, eds. The Endless Knot: Essays on Old and
Middle English in Honor of Marie Borroff. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Tavormina, M. T. Kindly Similitude. Marriage and Family in Piers Plowman. Boydell & Brewer, 1995.
Taylor, Jane H. M. and Lesley Smith. Women, the Book and the Word. Boydell & Brewer, 1995
Terasawa, J. Nominal Compounds in Old English: A Metrical Approach. Anglistica Vol. XXVII. Copenhagen, 1994.
Thompson, N. S. Chaucer, Boccaccio and the Debate of Love: A Comparative Study of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales. Oxford at the
Clarendon Press, 1966.
Tieken-Boon Van Ostade, Ingrid. The Two Versions of Malory’s Morte
Darthur. Multiple Negation and the Editing of the Text. Boydell &
Brewer, 1995.
Troyan, Scott D. Textual Decorum: A Rethoric of Attitudes in Medieval Literature. Garland Studies in Medieval Literature 12. Garland, 1994.
Tschann, Judit & M. P. Parkes, eds. Facsimile of Bodleian Library in Late
Medieval England. Michigan State University Press, 1996.
Twycross, M. ed. Festive Drama. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
Vantuono, William, ed. Old and Middle English Texts with Accompanying
Textual and Linguistic Apparatus. Lang, 1994.
205
Antonio Bravo
____________________________________________________________________
Wenzel, Siegfried. Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late
Medieval England. Michigan State University Press, 1994.
Warkentin, Germaine. ed. Critical Issues in Editing Exploration Texts. University of Toronto Press, 1995.
Wilcox, J. ed. Ælfric’s Preface. Durham, 1994.
Wilks Michael. The World of John of Salisbury. Blackwell, 1994.
Williams, Ann. The English and the Norman Conquest. Boydell, 1995.
Winearls, Joan. ed. Editing Early and Historical Atlases. University of
Toronto Press, 1995.
Wynne-Davies, M. Women and Arthurian Literature: Seizing the Sword.
Macmillan, 1996.
Yamakawa, Kikuo. Studies in English Historical Syntax. Kenkyusha, 1996.
Antonio Bravo
University of Oviedo
*†*
206
Notice:
The 11th SELIM Conference will be held at the University of Vigo, Vigo,
24 — 26 September 1998.
Explicit hoc totum
pro Xpto da mihi potum
*†*